


Hard Pill to Swallow

by flexzone



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (interspersed with kids being dorks), Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Angst, Drama, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Procedures, POV Multiple, Terminal Illnesses, Vomiting, bro and dave are awkward and cute, man these tags make this sound so unpleasant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-03-03 15:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 27,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2856074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flexzone/pseuds/flexzone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When "growing pains" in Dave's hip turn out to be something far more serious, Bro and the kids are thrown for a loop. </p><p>A leisurely, multi-POV series of snapshots tracing the trajectory of Dave's gradual decline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bro parents questionably and remains slightly less concerned than he probably should be about Dave's new habits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> definitely a bit slow in the beginning, but things should speed up soon enough! we're just getting started...

==> Bro: Take notice.

Dave is hiding something from you.

By itself, this is hardly a cause for concern, considering the fact that you spend most of your time with him toeing the fine line between tough love and downright antagonism. 

What's worrying you here is that he's doing a really shitty job at it.

See, your little brother doesn't half-ass things. It's not so much that he's a try-hard--that would ruin his meticulously constructed image, and Dave is nothing if not image conscious. It's more that he's a perfectionist, which explains his whole shtick about putting a ridiculous amount of effort into looking like he's barely trying. 

The kid's become fiercely independent, having begged you to let him get his license the day he turned sixteen, and after saving up his own money from two summer jobs, he bought himself a junky used car. Ever since, he's gotten increasingly private about his personal life, and it sometimes feels like he's built this entire world of friends and hopes and worries that you've been locked out of. You guess that's kind of how growing up works. You're (pretty) sure he loves you, but you're equally sure he's counting down the days until high school is over and he can move out and make a name for himself, and you're damn proud of him. 

And hey, you're more than willing to give him his space; you're not really the type to hover. But he's picked up this weird constellation of new behaviors that kind of worries you. 

Each little change on its own is hardly a big deal, but all together, they've turned him into someone else. He doesn't eat much anymore, and while he moves okay-ish during your rooftop duels, he's stopped ever issuing the challenges himself. You keep noticing a hollowness to his cheeks that you don't remember seeing even two or three months ago, and he always comes up with these elaborate excuses not to go on outings with his friends. 

Your first thought was drugs--it's not like it'd be unexpected, considering your own brief but unpleasant encounters with addiction--but you've checked his arms for track marks and his room for pretty much every kind of paraphernalia you can think of, to no avail. His school attendance is good, and his grades are better, so he probably hasn't fallen in with the wrong crowd. Is he confused or something? Does he think you don't know he's into dudes? No, he definitely knows you caught him writing a series of mushy post-rock lullabies just for John (never to be revealed to John himself, of course), and he's well aware of the fact that the crummy webcomic he obsessively maintains couldn't be gayer if he literally replaced every character with a talking dick. 

Instead, you've decided his symptoms are pretty consistent with some kind of mood disorder, and if he's depressed, you should probably get him checked out. Soon.

(The scariest part here is that you're even aware there's something wrong in the first place. You're an expert at reading Dave, but if there were something he really didn't want you knowing about, there's no way you'd be sitting here brooding over it like some kind of hypochondriac mother hen.

So either it's all an elaborate cry for help, or it's bothering him enough that he's physically unable to hide it.

Unfortunately, you aren't even remotely sure what 'it' is.)

Sometimes, just as a last resort, you can get him to come clean after a particularly taxing strife. You could always just walk into his room and tell him, but that's not really how you roll. Feeling slightly guilty, you send him a quick text to meet you on the roof and grab a blade that's only just heavy enough to bruise. 

==> Bro: Make an unwanted discovery.

Dave's a little late--you guess it's all relative, since he's usually up within a half-minute--and it almost looks like you just woke him up from a nap.

He fights like it, too. 

He's been unusually slow lately, but you blamed it on the late summer heat (although if you're honest with yourself, he hasn't been this clumsy since he was twelve; he must really not be eating enough). He looks exhausted a few minutes in, so you figure you'll take pity on the poor kid and end the fight prematurely before opening the interrogation. 

You switch to offense, backing him up bit by bit until he'll have to expertly sidestep to avoid crashing into the air conditioner. 

The sidestep never comes, and his hip hits the corner. Mistakes happen, and you're expecting a swear and a quick lateral correction, but instead his eyes widen and his left knee buckles under him. You're immediately terrified, because you don't think you've seen him trip in almost a decade. He sits there for a second, not even trying to get up, before opening his mouth to speak.

"I can't feel my leg," he says slowly.

Fuck.

==> Dave: Explain exactly what's going on.

What, to Bro? No way. There's nothing to explain, really. 

You can't believe you let yourself go like that on the roof, and that nagging throb you've been feeling in your hip for the past few months? It's growing pains, just like the internet said. Sure, it's a little weird to have your leg go numb out of the blue, but there's no way you're gonna bitch and moan to Bro about a couple aches and pains, especially not after working so hard to hide your limp. No one ever died from their leg going tingly, you don't think. 

You're sure he'll get on your case for being such a pussy once the doctors send you home with some aspirin or something.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dave is a good sport and Bro belatedly realizes he may have missed something really, really important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit longer--i only planned on posting the first half of this for now, but i felt like i was being needlessly cagey with the cliffhangers :P

==> Bro: Get some answers.

Easier said than done; you've been sitting in an ER holding bay for almost three hours without any news.

Normally, of course, you'd have had to wait much longer to even get a bed in the first place, but it looks like any kind of sudden one-sided numbness gets you an instant ticket inside. 

You still can't tell what's wrong with your brother, except for the fact that there was a darkish spot on the x-ray of his left hip. They haven't explained anything to you yet, but you breathe a tiny sigh of relief when they don't point out any fractures. That's gotta be a good sign, right? Dave can feel his leg again, they're letting him keep his jeans on, and you're nearly convinced the whole thing is just a fluke until a doctor you've never seen before comes in and asks him to unbutton his pants one more time. 

"Why?" Dave demands, sounding unusually defensive, like he knew the doctor was going to ask him that.

"I'm going to palpate your hip, so I need you to tell me what you feel, David," the doctor explains.

"Dave," he corrects automatically. He pulls the top of his jeans down anyway, and fuck, has he lost weight? You don't remember his hipbones sticking out like that. 

The doctor starts pushing down on one spot in particular, and it almost seems like he's looking for something. 

"I'm guessing you're having some pain here, Dave." 

What? 

Dave shoots you a nervous glance before nodding microscopically. 

"I thought so. How long has this been going on?" Dave doesn't respond. "Weeks?" Shit, he's actively avoiding meeting your eyes, and you have no idea what this means--

"...Months?" 

There's a brief pause, and Dave nods again. _At least he wasn't depressed_ , you think absently. 

"I'm sorry to hear that, Dave. We're working on finding out what's bothering you, but we're going to need you to sit through a few more tests--"

"What kind of tests?" you interrupt, and you can't help but feel like you've been left out of the loop. You'd been under the impression Dave had just tweaked his leg or something, but the way the doctor is talking, it sounds like it's something pretty serious. 

"Well, we just need to get a better picture of what's happening inside Dave's hip, so we're going to take two more kinds of images by doing a CT scan and a bone scan. You'll hear a little more about them once we get started." 

"Will it hurt?" Dave asks, obviously trying so hard to sound nonchalant, and you're all at once reminded how young he is. Your mind had immediately jumped to how much radiation he'd be getting from the tests, and how much time you'd need to set aside to clear them with your insurance, but he's just a kid; of course he's thinking about the imminent needle sticks.

The doctor's face softens. "No, Dave, it should just be a quick poke. And we'll get you something for your hip, too."

You feel like trash, the absolute worst kind of parent. A doctor noticed in ten seconds what you'd apparently overlooked for months, and a tiny voice reminds you that Dave was only afraid to tell you he was hurting because you'd made him that way--you're the one who forbids any outward sign of weakness, who picks up on any and all shortcomings and unfailingly exploits them. 

And fuck, you'd thought you were doing him a favor by keeping him sharp, but here he is looking so small in a hospital bed and you can't help but wish you'd cut him a little more slack. 

If this is what's been making him act so weird for the past couple months, he must be in more pain than he's letting on. You guess it kind of makes sense--it definitely explains why he hasn't been strifing well, and why he doesn't want to go on outings with John or Jade, who always insist on roughhousing and "exploring the great outdoors!!!" or whatever the fuck. But you aren't quite sure about the weight loss. Maybe it's just a puberty thing.

By the time you tune back in, the doctor is gone, and Dave is staring at his lap. You want to shake him by the shoulders and ask him why he didn't tell you, why he suffered in silence for so long, but if you're being honest with yourself, you already know. 

"Are you hurting?" you ask instead, trying to sound parental. He just shrugs. Of course he does; you taught him to. 

A nurse eventually hurries in with a wheelchair. She hands Dave a trio of pills and a paper cup of water, and you wish he wouldn't look so ashamed as he quickly swallows them.

"Climb in, David! I'm here to take you to your CT. Mr. Strider, you can just stay put right there."

"Dave. And I can walk," he replies, stepping out of the hospital bed as if there were absolutely nothing wrong. The nurse looks a little annoyed. You decide you don't like her.

"Suit yourself, I suppose. Come along, then," she says, and they disappear around the corner before you get the chance to say anything.

==> Dave: Blow this popsicle stand.

You'd love to, except you've just been informed that all the first two scans bought you was a backstage access pass to more tests. Sigh.

You can finally go home for the night as soon as you get your blood drawn. But they've scheduled you for a bone biopsy tomorrow morning, which from your understanding means they'll slice you open and take a little piece out of your hip. They also mentioned they'd be using a big, hollow needle to take a sample of your bone marrow, although you'll be asleep anyway for the other biopsy, so you can hardly bring yourself to care.

The weird thing about all of this medical business is that you still have no idea what they're looking for. (Something's telling you this is a calculated move on their part, but you decide not to read too far into it just yet.)

Bro keeps looking at you funny as he signs your discharge papers, and he's impossible to read, as usual. You can't tell if he's worrying about you or silently judging you for making such a big deal out of all of this. If you hadn't fucked up that last strife on the roof, you wouldn't even be here right now.

They slide a needle into the crook of your elbow and fill a little tube with your blood. You look away, and you aren't sure why. 

They'd had you step out of your jeans and into a hospital gown for the CT scan, which actually ended up feeling kind of nice on your swollen hip. But that doesn't mean you're any less grateful when Bro hands you back a pile of your regular clothes to change into (not the ones you wore to the hospital, so he must've gone back home to get them for you). Your hip is feeling better after those pills they gave you, and as Bro walks you back to the car, you're feeling less like a guinea pig and more like a human. 

"So what was that all about?" he finally asks halfway through the ride home, the question laughably understated.

"I dunno."

"We were there for almost twelve hours, kiddo," he says, looking at you instead of the road. "I'm sure you can think of something."

You shrug for what feels like the thousandth time today.

"It'd been hurting for a while, I guess."

"And you thought I'd think you were going soft if you said anything?" he asks, although it's more of a statement than a question. If you didn't know any better, you'd think he sounded a little hurt.

"I just didn't think it was a federal fucking issue. I probably just pulled a muscle or something, it's whatever."

"You know they don't do bone biopsies for pulled muscles, little man," he says quietly.

You do know. 

"Anyway, they gave me some antibiotics for you to start taking just in case, plus some Motrin. One of the doctors let on that it might be some kind of bone infection," he continues. "They said you can get them from having a cut somewhere else on your body, and they can cause fevers and everything." You thought you'd been feeling warm lately. "Antibiotics should clear it up soon enough."

"What else could it be?" you ask.

"Huh?" You've caught him off guard. "I'm not sure. They didn't mention anything else. It's good we caught it, though," he says, and pulls into the parking garage.

So then what're they cutting you open for? 

==> Dave: Head back to your room and confide in John.

Nah. Not for a regular old infection. You're gonna be fine.

==> Dave: Head back to your room and go to bed.

This you can do. 

You've spent practically the whole day lying down, but hospitals are weirdly tiring, and it feels so, so good to peel off your jeans and climb between the sheets of your own bed. 

Bro appears in your doorway, and you immediately sit up in bed, expecting an ambush. It never comes, and the sudden movement sends a wave of pain through your hip. 

"Did you take the antibiotics?" he asks. You think for a sec.

"No. I guess I forgot." 

Apparently he'd figured as much, since when you reach to turn your lamp back on he's already offering you two pills and a glass of ice water. You take them, and the cold water sliding down your throat reminds you how hot your whole body feels. You hope he hasn't noticed.

He takes the empty glass from you and turns your light back off.

"Get some sleep," he tells you, and then he's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not sure how long i want the chapters to be from here on out...they'll probably just end up varying wildly :')


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we hear from John for the first time, Dave stirs noodles, and Bro gets a taste of his personal hell.

==> John: Worry about your best friend.

Why the heck would you do that? Dave is just Dave. He's a big boy, and if he doesn't want to talk to you, that's his decision! There's no need for you to get up in his business. It's not like you're obsessed with him!

...Except sometimes you feel like the more Dave says he doesn't want to talk about things, the more he's actually secretly wishing someone will sit him down and listen to him, really listen, without all those layers of one-upmanship and dick jokes. 

You don't mean to judge him or anything, but you do think he's gotten kinda weird lately. Not his usual brand of weird, where he insists on keeping his shirts clean but his Converse dirty, eats sandwiches in a circle from the outside in, and listens to music that you think sounds sorta like a scratched recording of a broken generator. You think this kind of weird is totally endearing.

But now he's gotten different weird, bad weird. Like the kind of weird where he's stopped eating lunch and started skipping gym, and where he's started straight up falling asleep at his desk in classes that he used to really like. 

You've tried asking about it, and he blows you off every time. You know Dave really values his pride, not to mention his privacy, so you've stopped bringing it up. But you hope that whatever it is, he gets it sorted out soon. Maybe you'll talk to Bro about it.

==> Bro: Anxiously await Dave waking up.

Dave's biopsy went as well as could be expected, and they got adequate samples of his bone and marrow, which is apparently something to be happy about. The incision is pretty small, but they told you they'll probably keep him overnight just to be safe.

To be honest, thinking about the fact that they literally cut your brother open and sucked out pieces of his skeleton makes you feel kind of nauseated. But you digress.

Hooked up to all the post-op monitors, he looks more vulnerable than you're used to seeing him, and you remember (again) that he's only sixteen. His eyes crack open, but it doesn't seem like he's focusing anywhere.

"Hey, kid," you murmur. He looks confused for a second (you hope it's because of the sedatives and not because you were gentle with him for once). "How're you feeling?"

"Mm," he hums. He shifts, then winces a little. Poor kid has a fresh incision down to the bone, and the drugs are definitely starting to wear off.

"Do you need more painkillers?" He shakes his head.

(You'll ask the nurse to slip some in anyway.)

As if on cue, the surgeon walks in. "How's it going, champ?" he says, giving Dave's hand a hearty squeeze that's comforting in a way you're not sure you'd be able to replicate. "You did great. We got everything we needed, and you'll hear back from us within a couple days."

"'M I goin' home?" Dave slurs. 

"Not quite yet. We're going to keep you here overnight, since we're a little worried about your fever." 

"Oh," he says quietly. You wish you could wipe the disappointment out of his voice and take him home for nachos and a movie like you did when he was twelve and broke his wrist. 

Something's telling you this is much bigger than a broken wrist, but you can't dwell on it, not until you know for sure.

"So what will the samples tell you?" you ask.

"Well, they'll tell us if the issues that showed up on the imaging are being caused by an infection or by something else," the surgeon tells you.

"What if it's not an infection?" The surgeon immediately looks uneasy, and starts fidgeting with the cap of his pen. 

You notice that Dave's fallen back asleep. 

"Well, it's unlikely, but Dave's symptoms could be caused by abnormal bone growth," he says, lowering his voice.

"You mean like a deformity?" What is he talking about? Wouldn't Dave have to have been born with something like that? It occurs to you that it probably wouldn't cause sudden fevers and weight loss, so you shut up and let the guy with the MD explain.

"Not exactly, Mr. Strider. It would really be fantastically rare, especially in someone his age, but there could be some kind of tumor growing in Dave's hip."

You blink.

"A tumor...?" 

"We hadn't brought up the possibility because we didn't want you to worry prematurely," he admits. "It's much more likely that it's a bone infection, which would be serious, but very treatable." The surgeon puts a reassuring hand on your arm, and you jerk it away.

You say nothing.

"I'll give you some time alone with him," he says, as if Dave's on his deathbed or something. "Please let the nurses know if you have any questions." He walks out like he didn't just give you a teaser of every parent's worst nightmare.

You decide not to tell Dave.

==> Bro: Take your brother home and wait.

You are, and it's agonizing.

He spent most of the rest of his hospital stay asleep, and since there wasn't much else to do except watch his fever and wait, the hospital staff for the most part just left you alone.

You were sent home first thing this morning, and Dave seemed pretty much okay except for a little bit of a limp. You let him spend the afternoon on the couch and periodically make sure he takes his meds.

Somehow, he seems weirdly laid-back about the whole thing. You can't tell if it's residual fatigue from the anesthesia or just his natural disposition. A nagging voice in the back of your head suggests that maybe he's just gotten used to a moderate baseline level of pain. You ignore it.

By dinner, his fever's down, and you have him stir a pot of mac and cheese while you empty the dishwasher. It feels almost surreal to think you were at the hospital twelve hours ago.

"Have you heard from the doctors?" he asks, scraping all the noodles to one side and then watching them spread out again. 

"Not yet. You'll be the first to know, kid, I promise." You dump a handful of mismatched utensils into a drawer, not bothering to separate them. "How're you feeling?" 

He stares at you for a second like he's trying to figure out what you want to hear.

"Fine," he finally says. "The mac and cheese looks ready, by the way."

"Cool. Pick a receptacle," you tell him, offering him a choice between a hideous Veggie Tales bowl and a Dude, Where's My Car? mug. Come to think of it, you have no idea how you even acquired these. He smirks and picks the mug, appreciating it for a second before filling it with macaroni and heading back to the couch. 

"This is approximately 700 times more edible than that shit they gave me at the hospital," he remarks fifteen minutes into an old Spongebob rerun.

"'That shit' is also known as cream of mushroom," you inform him. "But yeah, pretty nasty stuff. Probably scraped it off the underside of the water heater or something," you joke. This earns a chuckle, and if it weren't for the gauze pad peeking out from under the hem of his shirt, things would almost feel normal.

"Tell me about it. Glad that's over," he says, setting the mug down on the coffee table, and that nagging voice reminds you that it might not be. You try not to notice that he's only finished maybe a half-cup of the mac and cheese, despite barely having eaten all day. 

It suddenly occurs to you that it's Sunday.

"Wanna play hooky tomorrow?" you offer. You feel bad sending him off to school when he's had kind of a traumatic weekend.

"Nah, it's fine. I have a math test after lunch, so I should probably just go." 

"Up to you. I'll be around tomorrow doing a shoot, so feel free to call me if you change your mind." Actually, you'll probably be staring at the phone waiting for it to ring with Dave's results. But he doesn't have to know that.

He nods, not looking away from the TV. 

==> Dave: Go to school.

You do, and everything's back to normal, and it's so damn easy to forget you spent the weekend in the hospital getting poked and prodded and sliced and scanned. 

==> Bro: Get the call.

No.

==> Bro: Get **The Call**.

"--and unfortunately, David's biopsy was abnormal, so we'd like to have you come to the hospital as soon as possible to discuss his results. I'm so very sorry again, Mr. Strider."

You wait for Dave in the school's front office, and when he sees you, he knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three guesses what's wrong with dave...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John is kind of a dick and the truth comes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first time formatting a pesterlog...hopefully everything looks ok!

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 13:54 -- 

EB: dave!  
EB: where are you? your desk's empty, and they're handing back trig tests!  
EB: did you fall asleep in the cafeteria or something? earth to dave, lunch was over like an hour ago!  
TG: you know me man nothing like the sweet sound of colloidal oatmeal hitting a plastic tray to really lull a guy to sleep  
EB: he lives!  
EB: are you skipping again? i thought you only did that with gym.  
TG: whoa whoa whoa  
TG: after the last time the locker room interior burst into flames upon exposure to my smoking topless physique the school board finally filed a cease and desist  
TG: so in a way you could say im actually doing the construction budget a favor  
EB: uhh huh. so generous, i'm falling down all this magnanimity.  
EB: no but seriously, where are you?  
TG: in bros car  
TG: something came up  
EB: what do you mean?  
TG: dont worry about it  
EB: i won't if you just tell me what it is.  
TG: doesnt matter because ive got it under control so can we just drop it  
EB: ok, now i'm seriously curious!   
EB: did you get in trouble? i won't tell the girls!   
TG: jesus christ john i said leave it be

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 13:58 -- 

  


==> Bro: Get the bad news first.

You do, if only because there's no other way to get it, since there isn't any good news to soften the blow.

But you don't know this quite yet.

A young doctor and a social worker, both smiling sadly, meet you at the front desk, and they lead you to a disgustingly cheerful little room full of comfy armchairs and blankets that seems to serve no purpose other than providing families with a place to fall apart.

The doctor--Dr. Payne, you note, and on any other day this would've been a source of amusement--sits across from the two of you on a hand-painted stool whose leg reads "Every Day I Get Better and Better!" This irritates you more than it should.

Dr. Payne pulls out a big folder that contains an envelope and a few brochures whose titles are obscured. She opens the envelope first and moves to sit on the other side of Dave, setting an ugly blanket on his lap and offering him one of the CT printouts. Your stomach turns. 

"Can you tell me what you see here, David?" she asks after a few seconds, voice nauseatingly neutral. Apparently they still can't get his fucking name right.

He says nothing. But anyone with eyes and a functioning frontal lobe can see that there's an angry white patch taking over the left half of his pelvis. He absently reaches a hand up to touch his hip, as if he can feel the exact spot on the scan.

You guess he probably can.

"That light part is an abnormal mass in your hipbone." 

"A tumor," Dave clarifies. He picks up on more than you give him credit for. 

"Well, yes," Dr. Payne continues, sounding calmer than you'd like her to. "We'd originally thought the mass was infected tissue, but your biopsy showed certain kinds of cells that are consistent with a bone tumor," she explains. "Sometimes these tumors can be benign, which means they stay where they are. But other times, they get out of control, meaning they can spread to other parts of your body and push out healthy cells."

"Okay," he says.

"Unfortunately, sweetheart, it looks like yours is the latter," she says, resting a hand on his arm. Dave tenses up, and the social worker gives you a pitying look.

"So what does that mean?" he asks, voice preemptively shaky, like he knows he's not going to like what comes next. Your heart is beating a mile a minute, and you're terrified when you realize you're almost positive you know where she's going with this. 

"This lump," she says, exchanging a nervous glance with the social worker, "is a rare kind of bone cancer, David--" 

There it is.

He wilts, he fucking wilts right into you, and without thinking you wrap him up in your arms, and when he hugs you back, he's so much thinner than you remember, and you should've paid closer attention, your kid has fucking cancer and you missed it, and--

"--so sorry, honey, we know it's--"

You just hold him.

"--almost 70% make it five years--"

"--anything we can do for you to make this easier--"

"--any questions for us? Mr. Strider?"

You keep holding him, hoping that maybe if you can just tune out the rest of the bad news, shut everyone out like you always do, it'll be like it never happened. 

==>

When you next look up, it's dark outside, the doctor and the social worker are both gone, and you're still in the incomprehensibly cheerful life-ruining room. Somehow your head has ended up resting in Dave's lap (it should be the other way around, you think dimly), and he's staring straight ahead at the door like he can't bring himself to move his eyes, let alone the rest of his body.

You sit up, trying to rub your eyes in a way that makes you look like you've just finished sleeping rather than just finished crying. You have no idea if he can tell.

Cracking open one of the treatment pamphlets the doctor left you with, you try to get a sense of what this news means in the short term. 

(It's much easier than thinking about what it could mean in the long term.)

A few minutes later, Dr. Payne practically tiptoes back in, like she's worried she'll spook you (hell, with the kind of news she's clearly capable of delivering, she probably does a little). Dave still hasn't moved.

"David?" she asks quietly. He flinches. "I think it would do you both a world of good to go home and get a good night's sleep. But before you do, I just want to talk to you a little about your case. Is that okay with you?" Dave shoots you a pleading look from behind his shades, so you act like a responsible adult for once and answer for him.

"That's fine."

She sits down across from you and pulls out more images, plus a printed calendar. You feel like you're dreaming as she tells you the tumor's big, probably too big to operate on, at least for now, and that they were surprised Dave wasn't in a significant amount of pain given its size and location.

 _Except he was_ , you think to yourself, feeling bile creep up your throat. Any other kid with any other parent would've come in months ago.

Later this week, she says, they'll start by installing a port, which is apparently a little catheter just under the skin at the top of his chest that'll reduce the number of needle sticks he'll need when he gets IV medications. He'll start chemo a couple days afterward, and they'll evaluate the tumor in a few months to see if it's shrunk enough to take out. If not, they'll use targeted radiation instead and work from there. 

Either way, he's signed up for at least a year's worth of treatment, and your heart breaks when you see it dawn on him that it might not be done by the time college applications are due. 

Dr. Payne apologizes again before stepping out to take a phone call. 

Dave breaks the silence about a minute later. "It keeps happening," he finally mumbles, lifting his shades for a second to swipe at his own eyes, and it hits you that he's making a reference to his stupid shitty comic. Half of you wants to hit him for making a crude joke about the worst thing that's ever happened to you, but the other half is relieved, thankful for any kind of feeble grasp at normalcy. You want to tell him you're sorry, that you're a miserable fuck up of a parent and you always have been, that it's so unfair that he has to worry about this instead of transcripts and tryouts. 

But you don't. He's got enough on his plate, and he doesn't need you word-vomiting all the ways his life is gonna suck for the next twelve months.

"The bad news pile doesn't stop from getting taller," you reply instead, and he laughs weakly. You kind of want to real-vomit. 

"I didn't--" he starts shakily, looking guilty for reasons you can't understand. You're the one to blame, so unspeakably bad at the parenting gig that you missed a huge fucking tumor in the middle of your kid's body. "I'm..." he trails off again, and you don't push him.

You hope he wasn't about to apologize.

"Let's get you home, kid," you say, and he nods. "We can talk in the morning."

You call a cab to take you back, not trusting yourself to drive.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dave is so entrenched in denial that it hurts, so Bro gets him to drop the act and have a one-sided feelings jam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy unreliable narrator, batman!

==> Dave: Feel numb.

Pass. This sounds suspiciously like something out of an old Linkin Park single, and you're not about that drama queen life. You redeemed your one free cry-on-Bro's-shoulder pass, and yeah, yesterday was rough, but you can handle this. You vow not to let it get to you and instead spend the day dicking around on YouTube. 

==> Dave: Deal with your feelings.

Why? You're fine. You've been meaning to talk things over with Bro since you got home last night, but you wanted to give him time to decompress or something. It's not like you're an expert at having the so-it-looks-like-I-have-cancer conversation, and they barely gave you any time to process it yesterday. 

The doctor and the social worker gave you the bad news within five minutes, a model of efficiency, really, and then apologized a million times before leaving. Such is life, you guess.

Bro held you tight for the first time in what was probably a decade. He didn't ask if you were okay--he didn't have to--but after a while he scooted toward you and just kind of rested his head in your lap. When he finally sat up, there was a damp spot on the shitty hospital blankets where his head used to be. 

(At first you were sure you'd pissed yourself, since you'd never, ever seen him cry.) 

Normally, you think, you'd have freaked out more, especially when they started comparing your tumor's size to various fruits and sporting equipment. But you think a tiny part of you knew that there was something wrong, really wrong, even a month or two ago. You had noticed a lump on your hip in late summer in the pool one day when your swimsuit kept riding up on one side, but it was always easier just to brush it off and assume it would go away on its own, even after you started feeling weak and feverish. 

It's your fault, really. Even if Bro had taken you to the doctor sooner, you're sure they would've just sent you away with antibiotics and some Tylenol. No physician in their right mind would check for cancer first in a kid, not when you hadn't shown them the lump. 

You decide not to tell Bro you had a premonition.

Instead, you walk to the living room, which is totally dark except for the faint glow of the TV, and sit down next to him on the futon. You sit just close enough that he knows you're on good terms, but not so close that things get sappy and weepy again. You're not sure how much more of that you can handle.

He's not so much watching whatever's on the screen as he is just kind of staring through it. 

"What're you watching?" you ask anyway. He doesn't move. "There's a Keeping Up with the Kardashians marathon at four. I can make us some of that crappy popcorn John left here if you don't mind the sound of your own arteries hardening."

"How?" he says out of the blue, pushing his shades onto his forehead to stare right at you for some reason, and what the fuck, are his eyes still red? Is he tired, or is he high, or has he just...?

"...I mean, I'd planned on using the microwave, but if--"

"No, Christ, Dave, you know that's not--" he starts, and then cuts himself off, rubbing his temples with this pained look on his face that inexplicably makes you want to apologize. "How are you so okay with this? I've been sitting on the couch for two hours trying to find a reason to get up and care about anything, but there you are, just." He groans to no one in particular, pushing his hair back. "You're talking about fucking microwave popcorn like you aren't even...shit, maybe I was wrong and you are depressed on top of everything else--"

"What the fuck, Bro, I'm not suicidal--"

"Then what the hell are you doing, Dave? You're sixteen, and you literally found out you have cancer exactly one day ago, but you spent the whole day watching shitty cat videos like nothing even happened. What even is that?" 

"God, sorry I didn't cry myself a goddamn river, Bro, but has it ever occurred to you that maybe I'm feeling optimistic? It's not like I'm dead already, so what'd you expect me to do all day, browse eBay for my own fucking coffin or something? Pick out my funeral flowers?" You've driven the knife in deeper than you meant to, and the slump in his shoulders gives it away. "It'll be fine. We'll take it a day at a time and just do what we always do, I don't care. So maybe I lose a little hair in the proce--"

"Bullshit," he practically spits, jabbing an accusatory finger at you. "You know I know you better than that. Of course you fucking care, you've been obsessing over USC's film program since you were twelve, and now..." He stops again, lowering his hand and stuffing it into his pocket. You aren't sure you want him to finish. You meet his gaze, crossing your arms without caring that you're starting to sound like a petulant child.

"Okay. You got me. I have cancer, and I wish I didn't, and it sucks. Happy?" 

"Why does it suck," he demands, pursing his lips. What the hell? Is he trying to get you to have a hissy fit or something?

"It sucks because I'd rather not have to deal with twelve goddamn months of treatment," you mutter, starting to feel weirdly antsy.

"What else?" 

"Fuck, Bro, what do you want--"

"What else."

"It sucks because I wanted to spend my junior year finding a fucking prom date and studying for the SAT, not lying in a hospital bed hitched to a goddamn radioactive IV drip or whatever the fuck 24 hours a day, okay?" you continue, unable to stop yourself, and wow, suddenly you're furious. "And now I have to put on my big boy pants and break it to John and Rose and Jade, and they'll flip out and cry and start to lie awake at night wondering if I'm gonna off it, and everyone's gonna see me hobbling along like some cripple sobstory straight off the Ronald McDonald House annual Christmas card, so sue me, it sucks, and I don't understand how or why it even happened." Angry tears are stinging the corners of your eyes, because actually having to say it all out loud is so much harder than sitting around and pretending it didn't happen, but fuck, it feels good to talk for once. You scrub at your eyes and fix your shades, feeling the sudden surge of rage bubble back down to nothing, but not the kind of nothingness you were feeling before. 

When you glance up at Bro, he's just looking at you. "There we go," he murmurs to himself, carefully putting his own shades back on and turning back to the TV. 

...

...Aaaand you totally walked into that. You have no idea how much of his own uncharacteristic outburst was real, but either way, fuck if he didn't kick your ass right into step two of the grieving process. Lalonde would be proud that he got you to crack in three minutes flat. 

He doesn't say anything else about it, like he knows he's pushed the limits of your Feelings Talk capacity for the time being. 

"So how about that marathon, then?"

==>

"You know, John's supposed to come over for dinner tonight," Bro says halfway into the fifth gratuitous shot of Kim's cleavage. Fuck, he's right. You'd invited him over during school two days ago, before you knew. "Are you gonna tell him?"

Shit. Are you?

"Should I?" 

"Up to you, little man. It's your tumor, so you call the shots," he says, eyeing you carefully.

"...Not yet. I want one more regular day with him before I mess everything up." 

"Then I guess I'd better order a one-more-regular-day pizza, since hell if I'm making dinner," he says, and ruffles your hair in exactly the way he knows you hate on his way to the phone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dave slips up.

==> Dave: Host the dweeb.

You open your door to reveal one John Egbert, bouncing on his toes with the biggest, doofiest grin plastered across his face. The sight kind of makes you want to simultaneously barf rainbows and hug six kittens, but you guess that comes with the being-best-friends-with-a-hypernerd territory. 

"Dave!" he cheers, dropping his bag and hurling himself at you like you've been reunited after a decades-long separation, except for the part where you saw him yesterday. Oh, well. Gesture appreciated. Even if he does do this every single time he shows up at your apartment.

"Nerdbert."

"I didn't see you at school again today!" he whines, scooping the bag of supplies back up and sauntering off to your room like he owns the damn place. You follow him, picking up an errant GameCube controller he dropped on the way and, oh yeah, frantically trying to come up with an excuse for your absence to delay his impending misery. 

"Had to finish that Jane Austen presentation for Mrs. Barnes," you lie, referring to your shared English teacher. "Prepare your body for the amiable-est of countenances on performance day." He rolls his eyes.

"I don't think you know what those words mean, dude, but I guess you did leave it all to the last minute. I told you to stop sleeping through that class like a month ago! Here, take this." He thrusts a stack of DVDs into your hands and proceeds to start unpacking his bag. "I brought only the choicest movie selections," he informs you unhelpfully, considering he literally refers to every movie in his collection as "the best movie ever." You refrain from commenting and move to flop back on your bed for a bit as you wait, closing your eyes and lacing your fingers behind your head in the perfect picture of coolness. (You somehow fail to mention your hip is getting tired of the whole standing-upright thing.)

You may or may not let out a markedly uncool squawk when something warm and heavy and suspiciously John-scented launches itself on top of you.

"Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!" he chants, glasses horribly askew as he pins you down with his frustratingly attractive arms. "Stop being boring. We don't have all day!" He stops for a second, releasing his stranglehold on your torso and scooting off you altogether. 

(Damn it. You'd been enjoying that.)

"Well, okay, I guess we do, heh. But we have school tomorrow, and my dad will be mad if we're up too late. So here, pick one!" he continues obliviously. An array of three equally mediocre films is thrust into your face, and you randomly point to one. You don't really have the mental energy to narrow things down to "least shitty."

"Excellent choice!" he practically squeals, hopping off the bed and heading toward the living room, singing your selection's--Grown Ups 2, you realize with a mental groan--praises the whole way. You and John grimace and beam, respectively, through the entire movie, and he eventually packs up his bag and heads back home once his dad starts sending him vaguely passive-aggressive concerned fatherly texts. Yawn.

This is how most of your hangout time has been going lately--he shows up all enthusiastic, you pretend to be bored, you both watch a movie and maybe snack a little, and then he leaves. You're kind of thankful, considering you haven't been feeling up to much more than sitting on the couch lately. 

John's over at your apartment practically every other day, as usual, which is a bit risky for your little secret, but you make sure you hide any and all potential giveaways before he comes over--that includes pill bottles, medical records, treatment schedule stuff, and the scabbing incision on your hip.

Later in the week, though, the night after you get the port installed in your chest, you'll fuck up. You don't know this yet.

You're draped all over each other watching The Devil Wears Prada--a pretty standard setup, if you do say so yourself, except you're dangerously close to falling asleep. The port installation, Bro told you, basically entailed them making a little cut at the top of your torso and feeding a tube into one of the huge vessels in your chest. It's covered by a bandage (and thankfully your shirt) for now, but you can't hide the fact that you're still kind of groggy and out of it from the procedure.

Half an hour into the movie, you hear a muffled grumble in your periphery. John's lying down, legs stretched across your lap, and he giggles. "Feed me, Dave," he croaks in a throaty voice, lifting the bottom of his shirt and pinching the skin on his (apparently vocal) stomach into a crude pair of talking lips.

"Sorry, bro, ran out of paste, and I'm not sure we have any other nerd fuel on the premises," you drawl, and he tosses a pillow at your face. You suppress a smile. (God, you have it bad for him.)

"I'm gonna go forage, if you wanna come," he declares, dismounting (sigh) your lap and bounding off to the kitchen. You nod in acknowledgment, pausing the movie to check your phone while you wait. Normally you'd come along to supervise, but your feet are completely numb from sitting in the same position for so long, and honestly, you're feeling kind of woozy and sleepy.

Less than two minutes pass before you hear the soft plod of his footsteps again. That's hardly enough time to scrape anything together, but hey, you think, maybe he just went straight for the Cheetos. No prep time needed.

"Dave?" he asks in a tiny voice you've never heard before. "What is this?"

You don't look right away, because fuck, did he discover that notebook of shitty sonnets you wrote for him in the ninth grade? Bro'd probably get a kick out of leaving them around just to torture you, even though you both know Egbert's so gullible you could probably just pass them off as some warped iteration of the irony he doesn't fully understand. Still, definitely embarrassing. You turn around to assess the damage.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

Your voice catches in your throat when you realize he's holding your new Coping with a Cancer Diagnosis pamphlet, and by the looks of that lip-quiver, he's already jumped to conclusions. Where the hell did he even get that? Damn it, you'd worked so hard to hide all the evidence of your recent hospital "escapades" before he arrived, but apparently you slipped up in your slightly drugged stupor. You think for a second. You...you'd stashed the pamphlet in the fridge, which you and your brother use as a shit-we-don't-particularly-want-to-deal-with-for-now holding zone rather than a food repository, but shit, of course he'd look there for food, like literally any kid who isn't you. Fuck fuck fuck. 

"I can't...I'm really hoping this is some sort of sick ironic joke, Dave, because I don't--," he starts, and then cuts himself off. "I'll just. You can explain." 

So you do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is a bit late! college is in full swing and i have "mid"terms almost every week x_x


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dave comes clean, and John's dad has his work cut out for him.

==> Dave: Be the bearer of bad news.

You are simply the best bad-news-bearer there is, you guess, since you're about to ruin your best friend's life for the foreseeable future. 

What you're trying to say here is that you've just sat John down on the futon to tell him you 100% for sure have a cancerous tumor growing in your body--real cancer, like the kind Nicholas Sparks makes gooey movies about--and that you'll spend the next year minimum getting systematically poisoned and deep-fried by chemo and radiation, assuming you make it out alive. You're considering leaving that last bit out.

"So," you start eloquently, clearing your throat and sitting across from him on the coffee table. "It's been kind of a weird week."

"Weird...?" he says slowly.

"Yeah. Weird," you confirm. God, you're terrible at this. 

"Dave, where are you going with thi--"

"I'm getting there, " you assure him. He looks like he's expecting you to punch him in the face, flinching and fidgeting included. "So, uh. You know my whole gym-skipping thing? And all those times I pretended to have Saturday detention or whatever when you and Jade were inviting me to go hiking?"

"Uh huh...?" 

"Well, confession time. Dave Strider is not actually a school-skipping teenage rebel."

"So what were you doing?" he asks after a second, looking like he's unsure whether he wants you to just spit it out or whether he wants you to keep dragging things out like this.

"...Okay, I guess I was technically skipping during gym, but I had a good reason," you explain. "I've kind of been having this weird thing in my hip since the summer--like growing pains, except all the time--and doing anything other than walking on it made it hurt like a bitch." Actually, walking on it doesn't feel so hot either, but John doesn't have to know that. "And then once I started looking at it, there was this lump growing."

"A lump?"

"Yeah. Like a big--" you make a circle out of your thumbs and forefingers and place it on your hip. "Like that." 

"So what was it?"

"I didn't know, because I didn't get it looked at--"

"What the fuck? Why wouldn't you get a big lump looked at?" he demands, voice rising. You shush him in the most friendly way you can manage, and he shrinks a little.

"Anyway, it hurt and stuff, and I kinda kept feeling sick a lot of the time, but I didn't think it was a big deal until I was strifing with Bro and my leg went numb for a little while." His eyes widen, and you pause, trying to think of a way to phrase the next part. 

"And??"

"And I spent this past week getting a bunch of tests done. That's why I've been missing school," you say. 

"Did you have to stay in the hospital?"

"Yeah. They cut me open and sucked stuff out of the middle of my hip, and then they just kind of stitched me up and sent me home," you say, lifting your shirt up an inch or two to reveal the gauze pad. He glances at it for a second, then turns his gaze back to you. "It was gnarly. They used this big drill thing--" you inform him, and he screws his eyes shut, opening his mouth to interrupt you.

"Dave, I just want to know what--"

"Cancer," you blurt, channeling all your energy into avoiding the dramatic buildup and keeping your voice and face even. You're fine. On the other hand, John goes perfectly still, staring dead into your eyes even through your shades, and says nothing for about ten seconds.

"Cancer-cancer?" he almost whispers, voice wavery. 

"Cancer-cancer."

"Oh." He blinks and his cheeks get wet, but he doesn't seem to notice. "What kind?"

"It's a bone tumor in my hip, and it's pretty big," you admit. 

"Will you be okay?" 

"Apparently 70% of kids make it out okay after five years, so it could be worse." He doesn't look particularly comforted. 

After thinking for a second, he swallows. "And you'll be...?" he asks, running a hand over his head and then finally taking off his glasses to wipe his eyes with his sleeve. You can't help but snort at this.

"Yep," you say matter-of-factly. "Just call me Cue Ball Strider. But yeah, I start chemo soon, and it's supposed to take about a year to finish, if everything goes as planned. So I'll be bald for a while." If you make it, that is.

"A year," he repeats to himself, and he shakes his head like he thinks he's dreaming. "Fuck."

"Yeah." 

"How did it happen? You didn't fall into a toxic waste dump or anything," he says, voice choked, and it occurs to you that he isn't kidding.

"They don't know. This kind of thing is pretty much just bad luck," you tell him.

Things keep going on like this for a while, with John asking questions instead of just bawling all over you. For this, you're unexpectedly grateful.

John asks how long you've known for sure (just a day), if you suspected anything bad before you ended up in the hospital (kind of), if it hurt a lot (sometimes), if you're going to have to miss your junior year (probably), if you're going to spend lots of time at the hospital (definitely), and if you're going to die (possibly). 

He then takes a deep breath and tells you he's sorry, really sorry, sorrier than he's ever been about anything in his life, and you tell him it isn't his fault. He says he knows, but that it sucks that fucked up shit happens to people who don't deserve it. You say you know. 

At this point, he finally gets up from the futon and moves to sit next to you on the coffee table. He wraps his arms around you in a crushing grip, and you return the gesture, breathing in the scent of his shampoo. Strawberry? Raspberry? Fucking Egbert. 

"You can come to my first chemo if you want," you say through a faceful of his shirt. "I just got something sewn into my chest, so it'll be a couple days before you get the public showing of me puking my pancreas out." He doesn't question this.

"I'd love to," he says, laughing a little and sniffling. "Just tell me when and where."

"It's at shitfuck o'clock in the morning, so you should probably just sleep over the night before and we'll take you with us to the hospital."

"It's a date," he mumbles. "The shittiest, cancer-iest date ever."

"I'll take what I can get," you (half) joke, and he giggles and wipes his nose on his sleeve. You didn't realize snotty sleeves could be so endearing. 

==> Dad: Piece John back together.

You were expecting John home two hours ago, so when you finally hear him fumbling with the key in the door, you have one heck of a lecture prepared for him. 

Somehow the lecture gets caught in your throat when you see the slump in his posture, the blotchiness in his face, and the dampness around his eyes. He's staring at nothing in particular, backpack slung across one shoulder.

"Son?" you ask from the kitchen doorway, and he doesn't move. "Did something happen with Dave?" You have a sneaking suspicion John might be harboring a crush on that boy, and you're more than happy to provide your blessing, but you decided long ago to give John his space in those matters unless he came to you first.

"Dave's sick," he says with an unmistakable quiver in his voice. "I didn't--he kept skipping gym, and he never wanted to hang out with me and Rose and Jade, but I didn't think--" he blubbers, stopping to cough once or twice. You thought you'd noticed Dave hanging around less often, and you couldn't help but think he looked a little gaunt when the light hit him wrong, but you'd figured it wasn't your place to say anything. "A-and then he stopped eating lunch, and he always fell asleep in English, and I thought it was some weird ironic phase, so I didn't even mention it, since Dave hates talking about that kind of stuff," he says, words flowing out in rapid-fire. "But it turns out he was sick the whole time, and it's cancer--really big in his hip--and there's a 30% chance he might die." 

Your throat tightens, and you push two years of bad memories out of your head for the time being.

"I'm so sorry to hear that, John," you start, taking him into your arms, and you realize that your boy is just about taller than you are. He takes a huge, shaky breath, and lets a sob out into your shoulder. It doesn't even occur to you that this is your best suit. "That must have been so difficult to hear." He nods, shoulders shaking, and you rub his back without saying anything else. 

"Y-Yeah," he stutters. "And I don't get how it happened, and I'm supposed to go to chemo with him later this week, a-and I want to, but I don't want to see--" he stops himself. "It's just hard," he mumbles. 

"It's always hard to watch people suffer, John," you tell him. "I'm sure he'd understand if you told him you were having mixed feelings about it."

"No," he says firmly. "I'm going to go." 

"All right," you say. "I'm proud of you for staying by his side."

A few minutes go by, and the shaking stops. He wipes his eyes and worms his way out of your arms, dropping his backpack on the ground. 

"Thanks, Dad," he sniffles, offering you a meek smile. "I think I'm...I just want to go to bed," he mumbles, turning to head to his room. 

"Goodnight, son," you say. 

A selfish, hateful part of you breathes a sigh of relief that you're getting the news secondhand through your own perfectly healthy son. Some other parent's world has just gotten smashed to pieces, but your boy is just fine. You'd be lying, though, if you said you didn't shed a tear or two of your own--John's mother became ill when he was too small to remember, and helplessly watching her grow sicker and sicker was probably the worst thing that's ever happened to you. 

John's mother was young, but Dave is younger. You hope things turn out all right for him. 

==> Dave: Tell the girls, too.

You do, two days later, and it's about as bad as you were expecting it to be. You invite them plus John over for some of your Bro's famous (powdered) apple cider, and they show up at your front door like it's fucking Halloween, except instead of getting a trick or a treat, they get your goddamn cancer diagnosis. 

They cry all over you, including John, even though he's heard the news once before, and you wish they wouldn't, but more than anything right now you need your friends. So you initiate a group hug and tell them you'll be fine, even if you don't quite believe it yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry again for slow updates! exams are coming up again, and unfortunately school > writing dave's demise :(


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jade offends, Dave apologizes, and John rearranges.

==> Dave: Hang out with your friends like nothing ever happened.

"All I'm saying is that mushrooms are literally giant chunks of fungi pulled straight out of the ground. Why would you even put that in your mouth?" 

"Okay, fine, no mushrooms! I'll just go for the pad thai then, since apparently someone's gonna be a two-year-old about it."

"I'm sorry, who was the one who banned Chinese from the menu because it's 'too spicy'?" 

John proceeds to shush you as he dials the number of some Thai place a couple blocks down the street. 

You've got the other three members of your friendship foursome splayed out on your futon in front of Mario Kart 64. Rose and Jade have been pretty much tied at the front for the last two laps, but a lucky blue shell scores Rose the win, and she sets the controller neatly on the armrest and glances over at you. You popped a couple pain pills half an hour ago, but you're still feeling kind of tired and generally gross, and you think the others can tell--to be honest, the way they keep staring at you is starting to piss you off, but you keep quiet about it for now. 

"So we've decided on pad thai, then?" Rose asks. "I was going to suggest sushi, but I suppose it can wait until next time." You guess it was technically her turn to order this time. Oh well; you snooze you lose.

"Sushi would've been so good!" Jade chimes in. "Don't you think we should've gone for something a little healthier?"

You and John give her a simultaneous horrified look.

"No? Half the point of takeout night is to gorge ourselves on three days' worth of saturated fat," you remind her. Feeling vaguely annoyed, you catch her stealing a glance at the medical tape sticking up over the neckline of your t-shirt. "None of this quinoa seaweed business. I want my bloodstream to be a sea of cholesterol." She wrinkles her nose and thinks for a second.

"I know, but..." 

"You callin' me fat?"

"No, Dave, I just feel like you shouldn't keep eating crappy food like normal people do now that we know you're really sick."

Rose freezes, and something nasty bubbles up in the pit of your stomach. Jade looks confused, if anything, but before you can stop yourself, you're fighting back.

"Oh shit, good point, Harley. Didn't realize having cancer made me a fucking freak of nature. Sorry you have to sit through the agony of hanging out with someone so abnormal," you say, aiming to wound.

"C'mon, dude, I don't think--" John starts, but you don't let him finish.

"No, guys, I get it. You don't have to keep sitting around pretending you're having a good time--"

"We are having a good time--"

"--makes you uncomfortable just to be around me--"

"--not uncomfortable, what the hell, why would you--"

"--fooled me, by the way you keep staring at me--"

"--sorry, Dave, it's new for us, too, but we just want you to be happy--"

"--just go home, then, it's not like you even wanted to be here anyway." Rose and Jade look kind of hurt, and John just looks annoyed, like he can see right through your bullshit. You almost want to tell him he can stay, but you don't, if only to prove a point. "Come back when you can stop acting like I'm gonna keel over right here in the fuckin' living room." 

You are the idiot, it's you. Your friends hesitate for a long minute before grabbing their respective bags and leaving, as if they're expecting you to change your mind and apologize. You regret your outburst just as the front door closes behind them.

You don't move from your spot on the couch, not yet--you close your eyes and let yourself wallow in the deep ache in your hip, in the lesser ones in your muscles, in the almost-ignorable soreness in the back of your throat. You can hear Bro's muffled voice from his bedroom. You'd bet money on him being on the phone with insurance again.

A couple minutes later, the cushion shifts underneath you, and when you open your eyes, you realize Bro has rebooted Mario Kart and planted himself next to you on the couch with a mug of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

"So John and the girls left," he says flatly after a half-minute or so, and you're both fully aware that he knows exactly what went down.

"I guess."

"Kind of a shame. Looked like you were having a good time." You shrug. 

"They wouldn't get off my back about the cancer thing," you tell him.

"'The cancer thing' is kind of a big deal, little dude," he says, eyes not budging from the loading screen. "They care about you."

"Then why can't they just let me forget about it for two fucking minutes and have a good time?" 

His shoulders sag as he lets himself lean into the cushions, and you think you might've heard him sigh.

"I don't know, kiddo," he murmurs. "I'm sorry." Your throat tightens, and you swallow loudly. "Here, take some. God knows you need it more than I do," he says, offering you the mug and grabbing a controller for each of you. "150cc or you're a pussy." You smirk halfheartedly and play along for a couple races. 

==> Dave: Have a breakdown.

You don't really do the whole breakdown thing. Instead, you decide to grab the car keys, suck it up, and apologize to John now that it's been a couple days since your tantrum. 

You know the way to his house like the back of your hand, so you pay a little less attention to the road than you probably should, especially given that it's dark and rainy. By the time you reach the front porch, you're cold and damp and generally pissy, but still feeling guilty enough to remember what you came here for. John opens the door, already dressed in PJs, although he doesn't say anything when he sees you. 

"I was a dick. I'm sorry." His posture relaxes a little, but he keeps glancing over his shoulder like he's nervous about something. "You can still sleep over tonight if you want. Chemo is tomorrow morning." 

"I want to..." he starts, trailing off and looking vaguely flustered.

"You know, Dave, you can't just blow up at us, say you're sorry, and expect us to forget it ever happened," says a suspiciously Jade-esque voice from the couch farther back in the living room. You guess she must be staying over. Half of you wants to throw something at her--you're doing the best you can here, they don't write instruction manuals for this kind of thing--but she does have a point.

"Yeah, I know." John opens the door a little wider, and it looks like Rose is there, too. (Great, they've already started having parties without you.) "It was shitty of me, and you guys didn't deserve it, but I'm still figuring all this out, so please try and excuse periodic bouts of douchebaggery. If it helps, the takeout place messed up the order anyway." John looks like he's ready to give you a hug and call it a day, and Jade seems appeased by your apology, but Rose still looks unsatisfied.

"Do you really think your condition makes us uncomfortable?" she asks after a few seconds. You hate the way she says "condition." 

"I mean, I know I'd feel weird if one of you guys got sick all of a sudden."

"Well, yes, it's an adjustment, and we're all worried about you, but we still want to spend time with you. Maybe even more than usual, given the circumstances." Ah, the mortality implications. 

"I guess." Realizing you're still standing in the doorway, you take a step inside. You're freezing, and it probably shows, because before you know it John's wrapping a blanket around your shoulders and steering you to the sofa between the girls. Damn it, where has your metabolism gone? "So what were you guys up to before I showed up?" you ask, trying to wipe the insecurity from your voice. 

"Uh...!" John starts. 

"We were watching a movie, and then we started to talk about when we're gonna visit you when you're in the hospital," Jade explains. "John said he can go most days after school, but Rose and I can only go on the weekends because of club meetings." Fair enough, except... 

"Hey, don't you have nerd practice too, John? Band or whatever? Cross country?" you joke. 

"Oh...uh, yeah, maybe," he stutters. You give him a Look. "I actually decided not to do those this fall." 

"What? Why not?" 

"No reason! I dunno, I just wanted some time to do other stuff," he says quickly. 

"Like what? You loved cross country last year. Did they cut you from the team or something? I'm sure you can get them to let you practice with them even if you're not competing."

"Um...no, I--" He's cut off by the phone ringing. "One sec." He jogs off to the kitchen to get the receiver, leaving the three of you alone.

"Poor kid. I didn't realize they cut from cross country. I thought everyone got to stay as long as they put in enough huffing and puffing around the track in those dumb jerseys." 

Neither Jade nor Rose will look at you, but Jade opens her mouth to break the silence.

"...Actually, John's been doing really well. But he quit a few days ago without telling anybody why." What? "He said he thinks he needs to 'reevaluate his priorities.'" 

...You hope he isn't doing what you think he's doing. John bounds back into the room as if on cue.

"Telemarketers, sheesh, I'm telling you--"

"Egbert. Please tell me you're not being a dumbass and quitting all your extracurriculars so you can weep at my bedside."

"Huh? I wasn't gonna weep!" You roll your eyes. "I just figured you'd be lonely at the hospital and stuff. I thought you might want a buddy, and if I don't have any activities, I can come visit every day after classes are over." 

"That's stupid. I gotta rearrange my life because I'm sick, but that shouldn't mean you have to rearrange yours, too."

"But I want to. I read this recent study about how cancer patients do better when they have a close friend with them through the treatment process--"

"Wait, what? You've been reading actual studies about this shit? Because of me?" He nods weakly, and fuck, you're overwhelmed with the urge to hug him. Jade beats you to the punch, and within ten seconds, you're all tangled up in a hug on the couch. "Thanks," you mumble, voice muffled by someone's arm. "I've kind of been a huge asshole about this, so props to you guys for being so cool about it. I'd love to have you visit."

"I still want to come with you tomorrow," John reminds you. 

"I was hoping you'd say that."

"Would it be all right if we tagged along, too?" Rose asks.

"...No more than three people in the infusion rooms," you bullshit. "John claimed the spot first. Sorry." Truth be told, you don't want the girls to see you hooked up to all the freaky machines and needles. Somehow you don't mind it when it's John, though, and you don't feel like explaining why. They nod, looking understanding, if a little dejected. "John, I can drive you back to my house, if you want. We have to leave early." 

"Rose and Jade are here, and I don't want to kick them out, so I can just meet you there in the morning."

"To be honest, I was getting tired anyway, so we might as well head out now. Jade can stay at my house," Rose says, although you aren't totally sure you believe her. 

"...Okay. Well...I'll see you guys soon, then. I promise you won't be missing much tomorrow morning, unless you're into gawking at shirtless skinny guys with bone tumors," you say, wiggling your eyebrows. 

"Damn it, how'd you know?!" Jade cries, faking disappointment. 

"How could anyone resist the chemo glow?" you shoot back. "I parked in your driveway, by the way, so let's go out the front."

You say your goodbyes and walk John out to the car, making sure to hang the blanket back up on the way out.

==> John: Head back with Dave.

Dave drives you back without a hitch, even though he's probably on some kind of painkiller cocktail that should keep him from operating heavy machinery. You follow him back up to his room, rambling on about how chilly it's been this week even though it's not even October, and he contributes an occasional "yeah" or "mhm." It occurs to you that he must be cold and exhausted, and you immediately feel bad for bugging him. He shuts his bedroom door behind him and proceeds to begin stripping. You turn your head away, allowing him some sliver of modesty, but you catch a completely heterosexual glimpse of the (slightly shrunken) Strider Six-Pack (TM) out of the corner of your eye. God dammit. Shouldn't cancerous tumor and abs be mutually exclusive? How have they not completely melted away by now? 

Bro pops his head in; he looks like he hasn't slept in 3 days. (Come to think of it, he probably hasn't.) 

"I packed your bag for tomorrow."

"What are we bringing?" Dave says, getting into bed in a sweatshirt and sweats, even though the apartment feels muggy and hot to you. 

"The pamphlet said to bring a jacket, video games, and some juice or something. Plus your meds."

"'Kay."

Bro ducks his head out the door and closes it. You change into pajamas, brush your teeth in the bathroom you know at least as well as your own, and climb in with Dave, thinking about how this is so much like all your other sleepovers save for the part where he's starting chemo tomorrow. You miss pre-diagnosis Dave, who you guess is really just one-week-ago Dave. 

"Night, Dave," you say after a minute, mostly to check if he's still awake.

"Night," he murmurs.

You bite your lip to keep uninvited tears from stinging at the corners of your eyes as you try to sleep (this has been happening a lot lately--you've always been prone to waterworks), and you guess Dave can tell or something, because you feel a warm, steady hand on your back through the fabric of your shirt. You fall asleep soon after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's been a while, guys! school is a lot of work! i have a bunch more of this written, just in bits and pieces...hope you enjoyed :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which treatment starts and John is disappointed.

==> John: Cheerfully accompany Dave to chemo.

You're trying, but it's just so freaking early! 

Right now you're dutifully sitting half-asleep on a foldy stool next to Dave's giant infusion chair at the local children's hospital. Normally, you assume, he'd be sleeping too, except for the part where they've just stabbed a series of needles into the corners of his arms and taped them precariously into place. 

The fact that he didn't even flinch at the pain makes you wonder how much his hip has been hurting him.

He's staring at the IV lines like he's not really sure what to make of them (to be fair, neither are you--the most time you've ever spent at the hospital before now was when you sprained your ankle in the fifth grade). Eventually, they press some button on this weird little computer mounted to the pole, and clear liquid starts dripping down the tube. He scowls the tiniest bit.

"Does it hurt?" Bro says with forced nonchalance. His foot is tapping a mile a minute, and you realize he's even more nervous than you are. He must've been up all night again. 

"Not really. It's cold, though. Tastes like metal."

A nurse walks in and presents Dave with a bean-shaped pink container the size of a cafeteria tray. 

"What'm I supposed to do with this?" he asks, turning it upside down and resting his arms on it.

"It's called an emesis basin. If you need to throw up, you can do your business here." Dave blinks.

"Oh." He turns it back over and scowls. You resist the urge to giggle at him, although you probably would've done the same thing if you were him.

(You experience a brief flash of gratitude for the fact that you aren't him right now, and it makes you hate yourself a little.)

The nurse gives his shoulder a sympathetic pat and breezes back out. You're not even really in your own room, per se; it's more like a curtained-off cubicle the size of a closet. You occasionally see other kids, most of them bald and generally ill looking, walk or get wheeled in for their own treatment. 

"I think the ones that cry are the ones with the best chances," Dave suddenly announces. 

"What do you mean?"

"When they come in for chemo. If you don't make a fuss, it either means you're insanely drugged, or you've felt some serious shit that makes this feel like nothing. Either way, I feel like it's kind of a good sign if the needles bug you." (The implications of the fact that he said nothing when the needles went into his own arm aren't lost on you.)

"It hurts that much for you?" you wonder aloud.

"What, the needles?" 

"No, the rest of the time." His face goes back to normal, and he stares at the kiddie ice packs they've arranged all over his hip. 

"Yeah, sometimes." You remember that one of his IV drips is filled with prescription painkillers. You look away, and so does Bro.

==>

About halfway through, when you'd all been dozing a while, Dave suddenly shifts in his chair. You open an eye, and he looks restless, like he's really uncomfortable but trying not to wake anyone up. It occurs to you once you've got your glasses back on that there's a nurse leaning over him, whispering, and he's whispering back. She's rubbing his back and offering him sips of water. He leans over the pink bean thing and pukes.

At this point, you and Bro are both fully awake and out of your chairs. Weren't they supposed to give him medicine for this beforehand? The nurse turns to you and makes a kindergarten-teacher-y shushing noise, and you realize Dave was trying to keep this on the down low. He looks kind of pale and clammy, and he's avoiding making eye contact. He always does this when he feels like too many people are paying attention to him.

"I'm fine," he says meekly. Bro gets to him first.

"Can I get you anything? Do you need something to drink?" 

"...Maybe just a blanket or something." That's weird. Usually Dave's metabolism burns white-hot. You distinctly remember having to kick all the blankets off whenever you'd fall asleep next to him. 

"You got it." Bro takes one out from one of the drawers--how'd he know that was there?--and spreads it out over Dave, who promptly closes his eyes. "Feelin' better?"

Dave nods a little, and then his head kind of slumps to the side and he falls right back asleep. This is bizarre. You exchange a baffled look with Bro, who seems equally stunned by this cold, sleepy person in the armchair in front of you. Maybe he just didn't sleep well last night? Either way, you're glad he's feeling better, so you try not to bother him for the rest of the session. You'd kind of been hoping you guys could all talk and goof around the whole time, just like old times, but you and Bro both end up falling asleep again until the machine beeps once the infusion is over.

==> Bro: Drive the boys home from the hospital. 

You were originally supposed to take John back home with you (you're surprised his dad even let him skip school in the first place), but after seeing Dave throw up, he came up with some story about needing to finish some SAT prep he forgot about. Hm.

At this point it occurs to you that you should probably let Dave's school know he'll be out most of the time. Some parent you are. Do they have tutors at the hospital? Will he be well enough to even get around to schoolwork? (Does it even matter if he keeps up with his work, considering there's a chance he won't even make it to graduation?)

Anyway, you all know John's just trying to avoid bruising Dave's ego, but you drop him off at his house anyway without asking too many questions. Dave'll probably pretty grateful for some time to be sick in private this afternoon.

"Bye, Dave! I hope you feel a little better," he says as he hops out of the car with more spring in his step than the two of you combined, and you're just glad John didn't tell him to get well soon, because he won't. "Pester me tonight if you get bored! Oh, and thanks for dropping me off, Mr. Strider," he says sheepishly. "Sorry for being so forgetful!" You wish he'd call you Bro. Mr. Strider is what they always call you at the hospital.

John bounds up the walkway to his front door, and you pull away slowly, avoiding jolting the car in a way that might set Dave's stomach off again. Dave is quiet for the car ride back.

==>

According to Dave's treatment plan, he'll be going in for chemotherapy every two weeks for a whole year, assuming everything goes smoothly. He's been feeling queasy all day, you think, judging by the face he made when you asked him if he wanted lunch once you got home, but he's taking it pretty well for the most part.

You spend the afternoon on the futon playing video games and watching this shitty Emily Osment movie about cyberbullying. Dave looks vaguely amused, and for now, that's good enough for you.

It's been just over a week since he was diagnosed, but you're already feeling slightly better about the whole cancer thing. His disease ended up being the worst-case scenario, the kind of awful thing that parents don't even think to worry about until it happens to their kid, but at least you have an answer now, and they're actively trying to fix him. Even if a year of this does sound kind of impossible. 

He falls asleep again 45 minutes into Finding Nemo, and you take this opportunity to call his school up. (The whole dad-losing-his-son premise wasn't really working for you anyway.)

You look up the number in his school-issued planner and steel yourself for hearing the news all over again, this time in your own voice.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dave's doing okay, John is vaguely creepy, and Bro freaks out.

==> Dave: Go about your daily life.

You are, for the most part. Bro's been letting you sleep as late as you want, which is nice, and you're feeling better than you were a few days ago. Sometimes you ask him to let you show up for the last half of the school day. He obliges you.

The teachers are all sympathetic smiles and whispers, and they make sure not to call on you or make you run around much, but you don't think anyone's spilled the beans to the other kids just yet. They'll find out soon enough; they always do. For now, though, school is the one place you can pretend you're normal, especially since you've still got a full head of hair. You actually feel pretty good, considering you've got cancer--it's probably the potent mixture of painkillers and anti-nausea drugs they've started you on, but hey, you aren't complaining. You'd never tell Bro, but you feel better right now than you felt in the week or two leading up to your diagnosis. 

At school, you generally put in just enough effort to avoid suspicion, but you don't actually bother with any of the homework. You don't have to. Your transcript has been closed for now, after all, and Bro's let on that they'll probably set you up with an in-hospital tutor as time goes on, assuming you're feeling good enough.

Today, though, you're running a low-grade fever. In the pre-cancer era, you remind yourself, Bro wouldn't have thought twice about sending your whiny ass off to the bus stop. But even though the doctor told you mild fevers are pretty normal in between chemo sessions, Bro's in mother-hen mode, and you've been declared unfit for school. 

Naturally, today's the one day you're bored out of your skull and can't seem to stay in bed long enough to take your usual late-morning nap. 

Bro pokes his head into your room, cracking the door open silently in case you're asleep. He looks a little taken aback when you sit up to look at him. (Have you been that out of it lately?)

"I'm goin' to the grocery store," he half-whispers, as if he still can't believe you're awake. "Need anything?"

"Can I come with you?" you ask, and yeah, okay, your standards for a good time have taken a nosedive, but you'd give your left nut for a chance to get out of this goddamn apartment.

"I..." he trails off, looking you up and down like he's trying to decide how sick you look. "If we make it quick, I guess. Sure, why not," and as soon as he says it, you're out of bed throwing on a pair of sweats. 

The nearest supermarket is barely two blocks away, but Bro heads toward the car anyway, and you're secretly thankful.

==>

You don't remember the grocery store being such a blast. You're surrounded by all these colors and smells, and it's exciting to just watch the city go about its daily business around you. Maybe you've already gotten used to a tedious existence of long stretches of lying around the apartment punctuated by occasional trips to the clinic, but either way, you'd kind of forgotten what it's like to do Regular People Things like shop for groceries and not mull over the fact that you could very plausibly be dead by the time you're old enough to buy the cigarettes at the front of the store. 

Yep. You're definitely not doing that.

Anyway, Bro picks up the basics, like milk and eggs and chicken and yogurt, but for your household, they're not the basics, and you have no idea what he's trying to pull here. Usually your cart's basically just a representative sample of the entire frozen food section.

"What are you doing?" you finally ask as he puts a sack of raw potatoes into the cart and checks his list again. When was the last time you had unfried potatoes outside of the Egbert household?

"Sustaining my progeny." 

"Very funny. This is healthy people food," you say, arching an eyebrow over your shades.

"A little wishful thinking never killed anyone," he murmurs, and you realize he's shopping with the cancer in mind. He's trying to make sure you're eating well so you get better.

You feel a pang of guilt when the number on the cash register is twice what it usually is, and then another when Bro only hands you the lightest bags when you're unloading the groceries from the car. 

==> John: Indulge a little.

Just this once. But only because Dave's home from the hospital for at least another week, and he's doing a little better, and he's sleeping over, and it's hot outside, and he isn't wearing a shirt.

Fuck.

He's lying on his back on top of your sheets playing something on his DS, but more importantly, he's wearing nothing but sweats and shades. 

His skin is covered in a thin sheen of sweat, this time from the weather rather than a fever (or so you think), and you can't help but stare. He's lost a lot of muscle, yeah, but there's something about the angles of his flat chest that just...does it for you, you guess. 

God, his face is pretty, you think, and you're sure it will be even without any eyebrows or eyelashes. You let your eyes travel across his smooth profile, then down his neck, across his shoulders, and--

Your brief fantasy is interrupted when you catch sight of the bruising around where he got his port put in. You really shouldn't keep letting yourself get away with this.

"Hey Dave?"

"Mm."

"What's your type?"

"O-positive," he says without hesitation, and even though you can see his eyes from where you're sitting, you can't tell if he's just being douchey or if he's actually gotten used to constant medical talk.

"No, dummy. I meant, like, appearances and stuff."

"Huh? Oh." This gets him to look up from his DS. "Blonde hair, massive tits, tight pussy. The usual." You roll your eyes. "No, I dunno. Anything's fine, I guess. Depends on the person."

"You really don't care?"

"I mean, I don't think I'm really in a position to demand extreme hotness considering I'm starting to look like I stepped out of a concentration camp or something."

"But you're...you." He raises an eyebrow.

"That sure was a statement that didn't mean anything." He tosses his stylus at you, and it bounces off your knee. "What's your point?"

"I'm just saying you could take your pick! Jessica's always passing you notes in chemistry, and Rachel saved that green pen you loaned her last spring." Not that you'd been keeping track or anything! Dave grimaces. "I'm serious! You could snag all the ladies, dude. All of them."

There's an uncomfortably long pause. "Maybe I don't want the ladies," he says, not quite meeting your gaze.

"...Oh." 

You'd had your suspicions, but...

He starts picking at a thread on his waistband like it's the most interesting thing in the room. "So are you into anyone, then?" He shrugs. (What, like he'll magically confess his undying love for you now that he knows you know he's gay?) "Alex--tall Alex--from gym class has those crazy green eyes! Those could be yours for just two easy payments of $19.99." This earns you a smirk.

"Not really my thing. Always been a sucker for blue." Your heart totally doesn't skip a beat. 

"There we go! That's your type, then."

"Dude, that's not how it works, though. You gotta look at the whole package."

"Ohh, the package, huh?" you tease. The look he gives you could kill a small animal. "Okay, okay, I'll stop. Keep going!"

"Man, what do you want me to say? I know it when I see it. Why, what's your type?"

Wait, what?

...Fuck. What're you supposed to say? Red-eyed cancer patients with ninja brothers? 

"Uh...!" Shit, you're staring at his chest, and you're turning red--can he tell? He must know. Dave's oblivious, but not that oblivious. Abort mission. "Short! Really short, stocky, and uh, tons of muscle. And...dark hair. The scruffier the better!" 

(You somehow fail to catch the disappointment that flashes across his face.)

"Cool. I'm sure Karkat would love to have you," he mutters, grabbing the stylus and picking up his DS again. If you didn't know any better, you'd say he looks kind of pouty.

"Um...yeah, maybe," you say. You can't help but feel like you messed this up somehow, even if you aren't exactly sure how. 

==> Bro: Take care of Dave.

There's a full week until Dave's scheduled to go in for his second round of chemo, but you're wondering if you're going to end up needing to bring him in sooner.

He woke up later than usual today, sticky with sweat, after sleeping over at John's house, and his voice has been sounding hoarse since yesterday. You have no idea what you're supposed to do about this beyond taking his temperature, which reads a borderline 100 degrees. The "Staying Healthy after Chemo" pamphlet, covered in smiling bald kids, cheerfully instructs you to trust your instincts unless his fever tops 100.4, but you don't have any. Who the hell naturally knows what to do when their kid gets cancer? 

If it were you, you'd just plug your questions into Google, but Dave is way too valuable to entrust to a search engine. Instead, you call the advice nurse, who pretty much says the same thing, except she also tells you to give him cool fluids and Tylenol. You do, and for a while his fever dips. 

==> Dave: Feel sick.

What else is new? You've been feeling shitty all day, but right now takes the cake. It's just after dinnertime, somehow; apparently you fell asleep again around two and slept the afternoon away. Clearly the nap didn't do much for you, though, since you're lying on the futon in just your boxers feeling hotter than ever, and you're achey and shivery all over. Your throat's on fire, your glands are swollen, your hip's throbbing, and you wish you could just curl up and pass out until it's all over. 

"Bro," you croak, voice catching into a dry cough. You hate the way you sound.

He's there instantly with a thermometer and a cup of water, like he's been listening in all along. The thought makes you feel kind of nauseous. 

"I'm here. Can you take your temperature for me, kiddo?" he says, voice tight, handing you the thermometer. After staring at it for a couple seconds, you remember to shove it in your mouth, and proceed to immediately feel self-conscious. Why are you so embarrassed? He fucking wiped your ass when you were a baby, so you should be fine with having him hover a little when you're feeling crappy.

(But wouldn't it have made things so much easier for him if you could've just avoided getting sick and making his life difficult for once?)

All of a sudden you feel like crying, and you don't know why. Jesus, it feels like your brain is covered in sludge, and you're just too damn tired to think straight. 

Luckily your overactive tear ducts, fucking traitors, are interrupted by the beeping of the thermometer before they give you away. You don't even have a chance to read it before Bro slips it out of your mouth and swears under his breath. You hear footsteps, and then he's gone. 

Somehow you end up deciding that this means you're probably going to have to get up soon. You allow yourself another cough and move to sit up.

==>

"We gotta see the doctor, Dave," someone tells you. Something big blurs into your peripheral vision, and you distantly realize it's Bro, along with two bags packed full of your stuff, which means you must've fallen back asleep on the futon for a while. "I called the clinic, and they said to bring you to the hospital right away."

You must look pretty miserable, because he bends down like he's about to pick you up to carry you. You manage to sit up before he makes contact.

"I'm good," you rasp, voice laughably hoarse, and you're so obviously not. He looks at you in the way you imagine people look at stray animals in euthanasia kennels. You have no idea why this comparison seems so fitting.

"Okay," he says quietly, and you clumsily shrug on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts before taking the elevator down to the parking structure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the uneven chapter lengths :( hopefully no one minds!


	11. Chapter 11

==> Dave: Pass the time.

After much deliberation, it's been decided by your "care team" that your breathing sounds wheezy. This has translated to waiting almost two hours to get called for your chest x-ray, which, you'd like to point out, is not how you wanted to spend your Sunday afternoon. 

Getting to stay home sick is pretty much the coolest thing ever when you're actually enrolled in school--you could probably count the number of times Bro let you stay home on one hand, so when he did let you skip, getting to lie around and do nothing felt like a special occasion. 

Unfortunately, when almost every day is a sick day, the novelty wears off pretty fucking fast. It's not even like you can hang out in your underwear and watch movies all day--you're stuck in an uncomfortable hospital bed with an ancient TV that has fewer channels than John has chest hairs, and you have no idea when they're going to discharge you. 

To be fair, you do feel better now than you did when they admitted you this morning. Your fever's under control, the chills have stopped, and they're giving you fluids through your port so you don't have to drink those stupid energy shakes they give you whenever you're here. The fact that you're feeling relatively okay makes it even more frustrating that they're keeping you here. 

Bro's gone home for a few hours to shower and finish up a shoot, so you're alone with your thoughts, which is generally not something you like to be now that you have ample fodder for an existential crisis. You decide to pester John.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 17:21 -- 

TG: hey john  
TG: egbert  
TG: egbutt  
TG: eggs benedict  
TG: egg drop soup  
EB: jeez dave what is it?? i'm trying to finish a lab report here!  
TG: wait really  
TG: nvm you should probably go deal with that then  
EB: ...meh. i guess i actually kinda needed a break anyway.  
EB: so what's up, home skillet? got some phat new rhymez for me to diss, dawgg?  
TG: wow excuse me while i lobotomize myself and pretend i didnt read that line of text  
TG: nah im just bored  
EB: hm...are you feeling any better since this morning?  
TG: yeah mostly  
TG: sorry again for leaving so early  
EB: what? dude, no!! it's not like you tried to get sick.  
EB: actually, i probably shouldn't have let you drive yourself home...  
EB: anyway, how's the home life? catching up on some hot after school specials?   
TG: man you know it  
TG: here i am keeping it real about aids or whatever  
TG: just saying no to drugs   
TG: except for yknow the highly toxic medically mandated chemo drugs they seem to keep wanting to pump me full of   
EB: wow. a true model of self-restraint!   
EB: i can come by with some movies later if you want! bless you with the gift of my impeccable taste :B  
TG: i think im doing ok for now  
TG: but thanks   
EB: i could even bring homemade soup! dad's making chicken noodle tonight anyway. why don't i just drop some off?   
EB: you don't even have to come outside if you're feeling gross!   
TG: uh   
TG: ok   
TG: no need to freak out or anything but im actually at the hospital again for a couple days   
TG: so i might need to take a rain check on that soup   
EB: what??   
EB: dave, you told me it was just a cold!!   
TG: i mean it probably is but you know how they are here   
TG: one little cough and they haul you into surgery scalpels blazing   
EB: wait, you're getting surgery???   
TG: what   
TG: no   
TG: look john i promise its fine   
TG: you can visit me in a couple days   
EB: a couple days? it doesn't sound like it's fine...   
TG: trust me its just a precaution   
EB: if you say so...   
EB: i'll definitely come visit, then!   
TG: youd better   
TG: ok actually i gotta go   
TG: see you later   
EB: bye, dave! let me know when i should stop by!   
TG: will do   


\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 17:29 -- 

"Can you put down your telephone for a bit, David? I need to take you to radiology." Well, it looks like they're finally ready for you. This nurse definitely isn't one of your favorites--she's practically a fossil, and she talks to you like you're the archetypal pesky, entitled teenager, dead set on exacting your revenge on your elders. In reality, you mostly just don't like people fussing over you and telling you what to do, which pretty much describes the bread and butter of most children's hospitals.

"Mhm," you hum, feeling the cold air on your legs as you peel the blankets back.

"Well, don't get too excited, now." 

You don't respond.

As much as you'd like to remind her that chest x-rays aren't exactly America's favorite pastime, you do your best to avoid being pissy to the nurses, partially because it's not really their fault you're here and partially because they're the ones brandishing the huge syringes. Actually, for once, you're kind of glad to have a nurse here--you can't help but sway a little when you step out of bed, and standing up makes your head throb all over again. She helps you get your IV stand over to the radiology department, and you try not to seem too irritated when they sit you down in a tiny plastic chair meant for someone half your age in a kiddie waiting room the color of old salmon.

==> John: Bring Rose and visit Dave. 

You thought Dave wasn't supposed to go back to the hospital for another week, but Bro says he got sick enough that they needed to bring him back early. From what you understand, it looks like he just got a nasty respiratory infection or something; you guess that kind of thing is more serious when you're already sick the way Dave is. He wouldn't tell you much, but a little bit of online research pulls up a bunch of sites saying that it can turn into pneumonia and blood infections and a lot of other scary stuff, which can apparently get extra bad when your immune system's weak like his.

Anyway, he's been stuck here for two days now, and you can't wait to see him! You and Rose decided to bring him something to brighten his day--you really wish Jade could come along too, but she's been out of the country recently on a science trip, so she's not allowed to see him for a while in case she gives him some weird tropical disease. This makes a lot of sense to you. It would suck for Dave to start growing worms under his skin or whatever!

The two of you decide on an atrocious hypoallergenic 'I'm the cat's meow!' pillowcase, covered in cartoon cats and little fish and butterflies and stuff. Dave moves in mysterious ways, but a good rule of thumb is that if six-year-old you would've liked it, Dave will cherish it forever. 

"Hi, Dave!" you call as you walk into his room, and you immediately wish you hadn't. His eyes had been closed, and man, he doesn't look so hot. His face is flushed, but the rest of him looks kind of pale and sweaty, and there's an IV of yellowish stuff feeding down the front of his stupid Danny Phantom t-shirt. Didn't he get that in the eighth grade or something?

"Hey," he says back kind of quietly, clearing his throat and sitting up. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" 

"We're here to keep you company, of course," Rose cuts in. "We brought you a housewarming gift of sorts." She pulls the gift out of her bag, and you giggle when you see that it's been painstakingly wrapped in velvety pale pink paper with a huge, glittery bow. 

The corners of his mouth quirk up. "Aw, guys, you shouldn't have," he deadpans, reaching his hands out and wiggling his fingers. Rose hands the box to him. He tears the paper off after turning it over a few times to admire the powdery perfection. 

He snorts when he sees what's underneath, immediately tugging off his standard white hospital pillowcase to replace it with your awesome joint contribution.

"It's beautiful. How, pray tell, did I ever descend into blissful dreamland without this masterpiece beneath my cranium?" he says in a pretty spot-on Rose impression. (You're impressed he can still whip out all those big words when he's obviously feeling so cruddy.)

"I dunno, dude, but I'm glad you like it!" you say with a grin. To be honest, you'd been a little worried he'd be too sick to appreciate it or something. 

You mentally kick yourself for being unable to separate him from his disease, for forgetting that it's still Dave in there. Isn't that exactly what he wouldn't want you to do?

"How are you feeling?" Rose asks. Dave shrugs.

"Could be worse," he replies, running a hand through his hair. Typical Dave response. "Definitely could be better, though. Hey, do you guys wanna grab some food or something? I mean, my hospital room's a riot and all, but we can totally ditch if you want," he offers. This suddenly sounds like a great idea. Actually, now that you think about it, you are pretty hungry! You had to wait a while in the lobby before getting your visitor badges, after all.

"Yeah, let's do it!" Rose gives you a 'no, you idiot' look, and it belatedly occurs to you that Dave is tethered to an IV pole. 

"It has wheels," he says without looking at you, as if he'd read your minds. He carefully sits up and hops out of bed, trying not to tug on the tubing. Apparently they make patients wear these ugly dark green grippy socks around the wards--you don't think even Dave would agree to wear them ironically.

He walks kind of slowly, and you can't tell if it's because of the pole or because he's just tired and sick. You start to wonder if he's supposed to be leaving his room like this without telling anyone, but you stop yourself. You trust his judgment. A little excursion never hurt anyone, right?

You make your selections in the cafeteria--Rose picks some virtuous yogurt parfait thing, and you settle on a nice big sandwich like the kind your dad packs for lunch. Dave gets a bowl of red jello cubes. 

"So apparently I get a wish," he announces once you've sat down. He's using a plastic spoon to saw a cube of jello into tinier and tinier pieces. 

"What are you referring to?" Rose asks. 

"Like the rich-people-feel-sorry-for-you-so-have-a-nice-trip kind of wish. For sick kids." 

"I see," Rose says, popping a strawberry into her mouth. "And did you have anything in mind?" Dave moves from sawing to flattening, squishing the cubelets into a kind of soupy mush. 

"Not really. I don't think I'm gonna take it," he says, eyes still trained on his food.

"Whmmft??" you ask in disbelief through a mouthful of sandwich, eventually remembering to swallow. "You could do something totally awesome!" He shrugs. "I bet you're just afraid you'd jizz all over Nickelback once you finally got to meet them." 

He chokes a little on his spit or something, and your Prankster's Gambit is officially topped off. Heh. You are the master, it's you.

"Holy fuck, you have so got me pinned right now, man, you don't even know. All up and ascertaining my anxieties and shit." He uses his spoon to dribble some of the jello slop all over the top of your half-eaten sandwich.

"Dude! Gross!!!" you whine. You vengefully flick a few shreds of lettuce into his bowl, and he grimaces at it. "But seriously, how high do you even you have to be? Why wouldn't you just take the free trip?" Dave unsuccessfully suppresses a grin, and you want to give yourself a pat on the back for incorporating his dumb comic like a pro. You really like when you can get him to smile like that. 

"I feel like I shouldn't get all coddled or whatever just for getting sick," he explains after a second, smile gone, aggressively scooping up the lettuce-jello slurry and slopping it back into his bowl. "Like...why do I get a fancy vacation in exchange for accidentally growing a malignant tumor? Who decided that? I could be a useless prick who's gonna go on to sell drugs and beat my spouse or something after they fix me, but they'd still give me free shit because I have cancer. It seems fucking stupid." By this point his poor, abused bowl of jello is just red liquid.

You and Rose stare at him for a second. The whole rambling thing isn't unusual, but it's weird to hear him talk about something he clearly actually cares about rather than some bullshitty constructed meta-metaphor or whatever. 

"Sorry," he mutters. 

"No, Dave, I think that makes plenty of sense," Rose says, trying to soothe him. "I can understand you're probably feeling very unaccust--"

"Don't do that," he interrupts. 

"Excuse me?"

"The feelings voice. The social worker's already got the 'so how suicidal are you about having a terminal illness let's discuss' thing down." 

"Oh," Rose says. "I'm sorry."

Dave doesn't say anything. 

"So did you convince your dad to let you bring your copy of Super Smash Bros to the hospital?" he asks you instead.

"Dude, you know I did. You know it! Let's make it happen," you say, grateful for the topic change.

"I'm gonna kick your ass." 

"I'm gonna kick _your_ ass!" you cry, getting up to put your bowl away, and he follows. He elbows you lightly in the ribs on the way there. You threaten to spit a tomato seed at him.

Rose looks kind of hurt as the two of you walk toward the dish return, and a small, mean part of you that you really hate is happy you kind of have Dave all to yourself, happy you're the only one who can get him to act normal. 

It seems like Rose is really intent on making Dave get in touch with his feelings, which could be good for him, you guess, but you think he usually just wants to forget about the big picture and focus on having fun when you guys are around. You're pretty sure she and Dave keep up sometimes over Pesterchum, but she stops coming by the hospital much from what you can tell when you're around, which is most of the time. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things fall into a routine, school is uncomfortable, and Dave loses his hair.

==> Dave: Do nothing.

You mean do what you've been doing for approximately 98% of your waking hours? Sounds about right.

After a couple of fever spikes over the course of a few days in the hospital, you were declared infection-free, and they sent you home with strict orders to stay inside and rest for another few days. Personally, you'd taken this as more of a gentle 'we're covering our liable asses so just do whatever the fuck you want once we discharge you' suggestion, but Bro's been following the clinic's instructions to the letter, and you're not about to argue with a guy who's got at least a good fifty pounds of muscle on you. So here you are, draped on the futon under a blanket, watching him do whatever the fuck he does to get the (hospital) bills paid.

"Scarlette," Bro requests, sticking his hand out. He's sitting on the rug in the middle of your living room arranging smuppets suggestively. The apartment has gotten weirdly tidy over the course of the past few weeks--you don't think there would have even been enough space to sit down before, what with all the crisscrossed cords and empty takeout boxes. Maybe cleaning has become an outlet for his repressed parental guilt or something. You pass him a red smuppet from the floor next to you, making sure not to grab it by the nose, but he pushes your hand away. "No, this is Ruby."

"They're literally identical," you grumble, offering him another random red one and hoping for the best.

"If by literally identical you mean literally clearly different, then yeah, good point." Apparently you chose correctly, though, because he seems satisfied. Painstakingly mounting Scarlette (or is it Ruby?) on her blue comrade, he adjusts the height of his tripod in "preparation" for filming. The aforementioned preparation has been going on for almost two hours.

"Don't you get tired of spending all your time between the apartment and the hospital?" you wonder aloud, mushing half your face into a pillow. The whole place smells like the veggie slop Bro's cooking for dinner, enthusiastically recommended by the "Chowing Down While on Chemo" recipe pamphlet. Sigh.

"Nope."

"Bullshit-nope or real-nope?"

"Doesn't matter, because I don't have much of a choice either way," he says matter-of-factly. "Bills gotta get paid. You gotta get treatment. It's not like I can check out and spend a weekend at the beach or something." Guilt wells up in the pit of your stomach.

"I guess." 

He's quiet for a minute or two, snapping a few shots and then moving the camera six inches to the right.

"I like filming, and I like spending time with you. So it's not a burden, if that's what you're asking," he finally says. Swapping Scarlette out for a greener, fuzzier replacement, he then introduces a third puppet into the mix.

"Watching me get expensive poison pumped into my veins isn't really spending time with me. It's, like, required chaperoning."

"First of all, no, but second of all, you could always think of it as buying more time to be spent with you in the future," he says, voice sounding kind of tight. "You warm enough, by the way?" You give him an affirmative grunt.

It's hard to imagine ever getting used to Bro fretting like this. It's like he thinks you'll croak right on the spot if he slips up for even a second; he looks at you like he hates himself, and you can't figure out why. You're the one fucking up the normal family dynamic with the whole prone-to-malignant-tumors thing.

The timer on the stovetop beeps, and Bro gets up to turn the stove off. Peeling yourself off the futon, you pad to the kitchen to assess the dinner situation.

"Dinner" is suspiciously green and chunky, not to mention downright unidentifiable.

"It looks like it didn't make it all the way through the wastewater treatment plant."

"...That would be leek soup."

"Nobody likes leeks."

"Sorry, what was that? Thank you for laboring over a hot stove to feed me, dearest legal guardian?" He ladles some into two bowls and sets them down unceremoniously at the table, where you guess he's already laid out all your meds. "What're you gonna do for the rest of the night?" he asks, sitting down across from you.

"I dunno. Probably fuck around on the internet and talk to John or something. Why, did you have crazy plans or something? Need a sock to put on your doorknob?" He scoffs and slurps a spoonful of the soup, which is admittedly pretty good, if only because it's minimally leek-y. Who knew Bro had it in him? You're pretty sure you've eaten more veggies in the last three weeks than you did in the previous three years combined. 

"Yeah, right. I actually need to finish that shoot up. I promised my viewers I'd have it up by tomorrow at the latest, so I should probably just suck it up and pull an all-nighter." He scoops up another spoonful of soup and studies it. "Don't go to bed too late, by the way. We've got another appointment tomorrow morning at the hospital."

"Wait, what? Already? Why?" You'd been under the impression you'd have the day to yourself.

"To check out your heart. Shouldn't take too long."

"I'm no oncologist, but I think I remember the tumor being in my hip," you half-joke. "But seriously, I'm sixteen. Pretty sure my heart's doing okay."

"One of the drugs they're starting you on is cardiotoxic, so I guess they just want to make sure."

"Oh." 

You guess cancer treatment doesn't really do jack if you bite the dust from a heart attack halfway through, but...you'd kind of been hoping for some time for yourself, away from the prying eyes of nurses and doctors, so you can't help but be disappointed.

Apparently Bro can tell, because he sets down his spoon and slumps back in his chair a little like he thinks he's ruined Christmas or something. "Sorry, kid. I know you'd been counting on just chilling out." You shrug. "Maybe things will slow down soon and we can take a day off to do something fun." Doubtful.

No longer hungry, you push your bowl away. You fail to notice Bro's eaten even less than you have. "Thanks for dinner," you tell him. "I'll cook tomorrow." You won't--he knows you won't; he wouldn't let you--but it makes it easier on both of you to pretend you're a fully functional human being.

You head back to your room and waste time on your phone until 10:30 or so, when Bro pokes his head in and tells you to go to bed. 

Just to give him peace of mind, you change into pajamas, brush your teeth, and turn the light off, making a show of standard Bedtime Rituals. In reality, you stay up for another three hours exchanging stupid gifs with John before falling asleep with your phone on your chest. It won't occur to you that Bro doesn't mention it when he walks in to wake you up in the morning.

==> Dave: Let the cat out of the bag.

It definitely wasn't you, that's for sure. But somehow, the kids at school have found out about the whole cancer thing--secretly, you have a hunch it was the front desk lady who does the morning announcements. She's clearly a sucker for a good sob story, if the pile of crappy checkout line novels on her desk is any clue. 

Anyway, it was bound to happen, so you're not so much mad as vaguely annoyed by the way it complicates your previously friction-free navigation through the school day.

Exhibit A: oral presentations in English class.

"--and so Brutus goes ham, like, helping kill Caesar and stuff, even though they're best friends. And Caesar just sees his buddy there, and man, you know he knows he's dying before his time, he just doesn't even wanna live anymo--oh," Bradley says, stopping abruptly and swallowing.

This is the eighth presentation of the day. Having stopped paying attention midway through the first one, you're instead examining the fake orange wood grain on your desk and just kind of applauding when everyone else does. 

You glance up, confused by the sudden silence, and everyone's eyes are on you. 

"I'm...I didn't mean to, like," Bradley mumbles. Now everyone's conspicuously Not Looking At You, and Bradley's staring expectantly at Mrs. Barnes, who looks like she's halfway to a coronary. 

"Uh...?" you stutter, completely baffled. John's got his eyebrows raised. Did you pass out from boredom and start sleep talking or something? Unless...

"Should I keep talking? I mean, if...this a sore subject and stuff..."

...

...They've got to be kidding you. Refusing to talk about death in front of the sick kid? In English class? It's fucking Shakespeare; the thought hadn't even crossed your mind. Nobody gives a shit.

Except apparently your classmates do, and now they're all looking at you again like they're expecting you to break down crying in front of the class. You fail to break down. Instead, you just turn sort of red and spluttery, and it starts to feel like the room, papered in neon motivational posters and electronic device warnings, is closing in on you. This'll be great for your high school street cred.

"It's fine," you manage. "Didn't even notice." 

"Oh. Uh, cool," Bradley says, wiping his sweaty face with his sleeve. "Yeah, so uh...there's all this blood and stuff," he continues, and thankfully the class turns back around. John shoots you a quick 'sorry that sucked' look before facing forward again. 

Exhibit B: anything and everything involving the leadership committee. 

You're grabbing your Bro-approved lunch out of your locker the first time it happens.

"Dave!" You look to your left, and standing besides you is the physical embodiment of school spirit, Jenni-with-an-'i' Collins, pompom hairties and all. "How's your day going?"

"...Pretty good, I guess? About to get my PB&J on, so that's--" 

"Great! I'm so glad to hear it. Listen, leadership is doing a school-sponsored video on inspiring members of the student body--"

"I'm really not--"

"--and we were wondering if you'd let us feature you in one of the segments!" she chirps, grin threatening to split her face.

"I don't think I'm really the best person for the job," you say, and her eyes widen. "Criminal record; can't be trusted. '04 was a tough year. Not worth it, even if you need to fill your quotas." It occurs to you that she might not realize you're joking.

"No way! The vice principal said we should try to focus on students with 'extenuating circumstances', and you'd be perfect for the position! Especially if you had a close brush with the law in the past," she says, lowering her voice and looking awed. Christ.

You shut your locker door, hoping it lends you an air of finality. "I'm just not interested. Sorry."

"But it might be a great way to get the message out to other students with disabilities--" 

At which point you grab your backpack, turn on your heel, and walk away without comment. The hell is she talking about? You've been feeling just fine today, so you most definitely don't have a "disability." That makes it sound like you're the wheelchair kid in the math textbook, sitting next to Pedro, Wei, and Trisha, figuring out how to divide your 12.4 pies up evenly or whatever the fuck. At any rate, your point here is that you're not really feeling up to being the school's resident Good Cause.

...So, okay, maybe the entire student body finding out about your personal life is more than a little irritating. People either tiptoe around you or get all up in your face about the whole thing, neither of which is optimal, considering school is supposed to be the place you go to pretend you're normal. 

Bro picks you up at the end of the day, and you feel faintly nauseated when you realize you feel way more at home refilling one of your prescriptions at the clinic on the way home than you did the whole day at school. In fact, you don't know it yet, but you won't be back at school more than a handful of times after today.

==> John: Get jazzy with the clippers.

You've been wondering about this day for a while now.

"Turn me into a cancer patient, dude. It's your mission, should you choose to accept it," Dave says, handing you an electric razor set to the closest shave.

He's referring to the fact that increasing amounts of fine, white hair have been appearing on his pillows and t-shirts for the past week or so. You both knew it would happen eventually, but a little voice in the back of your head keeps reminding you you thought Dave Strider would be immune to the chemo hair loss somehow. 

You run your fingers through his (mostly) thick, silky white hair one last time, and wonder when you'll next see it like this (if ever, the voice says). 

"Last call for keeping a lock of it in a fancy envelope, Bro," he calls. Bro rolls his eyes.

"Already got you covered, little dude," he shoots back. You honestly can't tell if he's joking.

"All right, any day now, Egbert. Too much longer and the tumor'll spread to my scalp, too." 

"Okay, okay, jeez!" Realizing you've just kind of been holding the razor and staring off into space, you plug it in and switch it on, motioning for him to turn around.

You do one long stripe down the side of his head, and a clump of white tumbles to the ground.

"Damn," Dave remarks, reaching his hand up to touch the bare spot. "It's cold." Your mischievous streak rears its head, and the next stroke you do leaves him with a big bald heart on the back of his scalp. Bro snickers. "What? Is it that bad?" He turns around and sees your creation in the intersection of the two mirrors as you cackle gleefully. "God dammit, Egbert. Give me that."

The corners of his mouth quirk up, and he carves a crude dick-shaped blob into the hair on the top of his head, striking a quick sexy pose before taking the plunge and just doing the rest of it in a few clean lines.

You both look at him as he surveys the damage in the mirror.

"Welp," he says after a quiet sigh.

"It actually looks okay," you muse. "You have a nicely shaped head."

"Don't forget the eyebrows will come out too," Bro adds. "You can be Voldemort for Halloween." Dave rolls his eyes. 

"The body hair's been out for a few days," he suddenly says with a smirk. "Wanna feel?" He pulls the waistband of his sweats away from his hips and looks down, wiggling a (short-lived?) eyebrow.

"Dude!"

"Just saying."

You honestly can't tell how self-conscious Dave is about losing his hair. Having crazy white hair like his must be kinda tough to begin with, but it probably doesn't compare to being bald. He's generally pretty fussy about his appearance, and when he's feeling good enough, he ditches the PJs for his reasonably sharp regular clothes. You can't help but notice he doesn't go out in public with his bare head exposed; it's tricky to say whether it's because he's vain or because he doesn't want people to stare or treat him differently. 

Either way, it makes you feel weirdly special when he leaves the beanies off when you're hanging out at home just the two of you. Sometimes he makes offhanded self-deprecating comments about the way he looks now, and when you try to assure him he's "a total hottie patottie, don't even worry, dude!" he gets the strangest forlorn look on his face. If you think about it, it's the same face he made when you asked to borrow his sweatshirt one evening this summer, and when you jokingly grabbed his hand at last winter's Valentine's parade to get a couple's deal on a box of fancy chocolates. Huh. 

You figure Rose will be able to supply some kind of insight on the subject and decide to just let it be.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the going gets tougher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it has been brought to my attention that sufjan stevens - casimir pulaski day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxMYqsvgX8c) may be a fitting accompaniment to this fic. it's a lovely song, so give it a listen if you're into that kinda thing!
> 
> side note: thank you so much for 1000+ views (and preemptively for 100 kudos), guys <3 <3 <3 i haven't written much before, so it means a lot that i have a little base of readers here to keep me going! :)

==> Dr. Payne: Update Mr. Strider.

You hate this part of your job. 

...Actually, that's not entirely true. You love when your patients make progress, and you especially like getting to deliver the good news to anxious, bright-eyed parents and siblings in the waiting room.

Unfortunately, Dave's not making progress, and his brother is anything but bright eyed. 

There's something weird going on in that family--Mr. Strider is somehow listed as Dave's birth father in his medical records, but there's no trace of a birth certificate or a mother, and Dave calls him "Bro." They both have that bizarre hair, white as snow and finer than spun sugar, not to mention those inexplicable candy-colored eyes that've got the med students in a frenzy. On top of that, the two of them interact like they're part of some big game where they lose points every time they express any kind of desire or emotion, or when one of them can actually tell if the other person means what they're saying. 

At the same time, though, it's plain to see Mr. Strider loves the kid to the moon and back, so it's not really your place to say anything as long as Dave has a safe place to stay and enough to eat. 

Mr. Strider is sitting across from you at the little round table, handsome in that striking, dangerous way usually reserved for supervillains in fantasy movies--he can't be older than 35, and were this a bar instead of a children's hospital conference room, you're sure you'd have plenty more to say to him--but right now, it's just making your job harder. It's tough to tell with those sunglasses he's always wearing, but it feels like he's looking at you like he wants to take matters into his own hands and manually pull the words straight out of your throat, and yikes, you're already nervous (although probably not as much as he is). 

You shuffle the stack of papers in front of you, clearing your throat. His hands are shaking. (They always are.) 

"Would you like some water before we start, Mr. Strider?" Anything to calm his nerves. He's at Dave's bedside almost 24/7 during his hospital stays, and you've never seen him eat or drink. 

"Um...yeah, sure." You fill a glass and hand it to him, and he takes a long sip. "So...how much shrinking are we looking at since we started?" he says impatiently, breaking the silence. "The studies I've been looking at have seen the best results with the exact treatment Dave's on right now, so that's good. And they got tons of necrosis even within the first couple rounds, which is even better." 

Crap.

You reshuffle your papers. "Er, yes, tumors like Dave's have been shown to be highly responsive to his current regimen," you confirm. 

He's staring straight at you, jaw clenched, not moving a millimeter. 

It's now or never. "Dave's scans are...unusual, sir. We didn't notice any shrinking in his primary tumor."

"...You mean it hasn't changed? What does that mean for us?"

"Not quite. It, uh." His fist is clenching and unclenching around the glass, and it's kind of scaring you. "Unfortunately, we actually observed some tumor growth."

There's a crunching noise, and suddenly the tabletop is soaked. Glass is everywhere.

"What?!" 

"Mr. Strider--!!" 

"That can't--fuck, I--" he stammers, jumping up and grabbing a handful of paper towels from the dispenser. 

It occurs to you that blood is streaming from his palm.

"There's just no way that can be right. There must have been a mistake in radiology," he says frantically, swapping out one bundle of paper towels for another. "I'll--I'll go talk to them as soon as Dave's asleep--"

"Your hand--"

"Is it necessarily a bad sign? Are his--I mean, is it still 70/30, or is he for sure doing worse?"

"I really think you need to get your hand looked at before we keep talking, Mr. Strider," you tell him, but the look he's giving you is so broken that you cave and keep talking. "It's...definitely not a good sign. But it's not a death sentence. We're just going to need to rethink his treatment and see if we can find something that works."

"Fuck, he's been so sick, though," he mutters, hissing as he lets go of the paper towels for a second and runs his hand under the faucet. It's still bleeding, and it looks like it'll probably need stitches. "He hardly eats, and he's been sleeping half the time, so I figured it had to be doin' something..." He stops for a second and freezes, looking horrified. "Could I have been messing it up at home? Like if he didn't take his meds on time, or if he's been eating wrong, or--"

"No, Mr. Strider. It's not your fault. There's nothing you could've done." This sounds like what you say when you're telling a parent their child passed away, and from the way his shoulders sag when he finally sits back down with a fresh fistful of towels, it feels like you might as well be.

He's quiet for a minute.

"I gotta go tell Dave," he says slowly. "He deserves to know."

"If you feel it's the right thing to do right now. You should that cleaned and stitched up first, though." He looks like he's about to ignore you until you see him realize his brother would worry if he stormed in, hand caked in blood.

Mr. Strider nods, and you call a nurse to walk him over to get it closed up. He's too young to lose a kid, you think, especially a nice boy like Dave. You hope things turn around soon, or you'll be in for more of these talks before you know it.

==> Dave: Hurt. 

You wouldn't have to if the chemo was doing its fucking job. It's been about a month since your first treatment, and if anything, you feel worse. 

Apparently this tumor is the vengeful tumor from hell, and your five-drug cocktail of cytotoxins isn't doing jack. You'd been having more pain than usual, and the latest set of scans showed the mass in your hip has actually grown a little. Bro's been furious, tearing the staff a new one outside your hospital room in a near-whisper when he was sure you were asleep. 

(On top of that, his hand's all stitched up, and he won't tell you why. You hope he didn't do anything stupid.)

Point is, they've decided to "intensify your regimen," whatever that means. You'd thought it was doing a pretty good job kicking your ass before, to be honest. Now that the chemo's properly crushing your immune system, the nurses have started making you wear this hideous blue surgical-looking mask on your way in and out of the clinic so that you don't pick up some nasty bug, which you guess makes sense, except that it also makes people stare at you. 

On an even more unpleasant note, you like to think your pain tolerance is pretty good--you (stupidly) walked around with this thing growing in you like some kind of malignant, misplaced fetus for a couple months without complaint. But Jesus, this thing's starting to hurt like hell, and after finding out it was taking you three tries to get out of bed in the morning, Bro finally made you do something about it. 

On the bright side, you've now got your hands on legitimate prescription-strength opioids, which your teenage self would find much cooler if you didn't actually need them. On the other, they've sentenced you with a pair of crutches, which you've grudgingly come to rely on more and more. Jade helped you decorate them with neon electrical tape and glitter glue, but even so, they make your stomach turn with wounded pride. 

Right now you're lying on an old striped beach towel in John's backyard staring at the night sky. You can smell the smoky remnants of tonight's chicken coming from his dad's grill, and it reminds you of summer block parties at his house when you were kids. As cool as it is to spend the night on the roof of your high rise, suburbia's definitely better for stargazing, which John suggested you do when you told him about the state of the union re: your tumor. 

"I just don't get it," he sighs, eyes fixed upward. "The medicines make you feel so crappy, so how can they not be working on the stuff they're actually supposed to be working on?"

"I don't know, but it fuckin' sucks," you mumble, tilting your shades up to your forehead to rub your eyes. He turns to look at you.

"Hey," he says, extending his hand. "It's still the beginning, dude. This doesn't mean anything for sure." You nod and give him a halfhearted high-five. He rolls his eyes. "No, dummy. High-five insufficient." He full-on grabs your hand, and your heart starts going bananas, until he gives it a comforting yet blatantly unromantic squeeze and lets it go. 

Hold on. "Full-on" grabs your hand? What is that, like 0.25th base or something? Since when did you restart the sixth grade? 

...Except his hand was warm and strong and callused and just generally really nice, like the way you imagine yours probably felt before you started getting skinny and cold all the time. Damn his healthy-person hands. 

You'd love to just reach three inches to your right and grab that hand again, but you content yourself with the short-lived phantom feeling of his hand still on yours and stuff your fist back into the pocket of your sweats. You don't notice him doing the same thing.

"I'm just saying they need to regroup, that's all," he adds. "Figure out the magic formula. I've been reading about it more, and they say every individual tumor is different, even if it's the same kind of cancer." Your cheeks heat up--you still can't believe he goes out of his way to read up on this stuff. (You've stopped researching your disease all together, given that half the results are hopeful but glaringly unfinished 'My Cancer Journey' blogs by patients or their parents. The implications are just too depressing, even for you.) 

One of the many things you like about John is that he knows what to say without trying to tell you that everything will be okay. Even Bro falls into that trap sometimes, maybe more for his own sake than for yours, but it pisses you off all the same. You don't need to be lied to on top of everything else. You're pretty sure being sick is an exercise in dealing with reality, so why bother trying to sweeten it up?

Against your best efforts, you shiver a little when a particularly strong gust blows through the yard. Before you know it, John's shrugging his jacket off and offering it to you.

"I'm good."

"No, come on, you're shivering," he says.

"Nope. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Dude, I saw you."

"It's--mmph." You're promptly silenced off by a projectile consisting of John's fleece jacket landing on your face. It smells like his body wash. "Trying to claim me as your own, huh? Property of John Egbert?" you quip. 

"Hey, you didn't even make the face this time!"

"Huh?"

"Last time, when I borrowed your sweatshirt, you had this weird look on your face like you'd gotten hit in the balls or something."

"Had you just finished throwing said sweatshirt at my balls?" you say, rolling your eyes and tossing the jacket back at him. "I dunno. I don't remember that." Of course you do. Seeing him wearing your sweatshirt let you pretend, just for an hour or two, that he was yours. 

"Maybe I'm remembering wrong, then." He stretches and folds his arms behind his head. "Fuck, sorry, I'm probably just being weird. Forget I said anything." 

He's right. But he can't know that. Even if you did tell him everything, and even if he somehow decided to romantically tolerate your useless ass, you'd have no way of knowing if he was doing it out of pity. And best case scenario, if he genuinely liked you and wanted to be with you, cancer or no cancer, what would happen if you just died on him? That's the kind of shit that happens in Lifetime movies, and you want no part of it. Ruining your best-friend-turned-boyfriend's life? No thanks.

==> Dad: Observe.

You aren't really spying, per se--it's just that you can see the backyard through the window above the kitchen sink, where you're finishing up tonight's dishes. 

You can't help but notice, though, that John and Dave have been lying in the backyard for almost two hours now. From the looks of it, they're just talking, and nothing more. You aren't sure whether to feel sad about the fact that they've chosen to lie under the same tree they've always lain under since you had that junky tire swing installed the summer after they finished the second grade.

In general, you try not to ask too much about how Dave's doing. With Dirk, especially, it would be too easy for him to feel like you're rubbing John's good health in. And with John...

...Well. It's hard. It's obvious to any outside observer that Dave and your son are engaged in some sort of strange, repressed courtship dance, which is complicated further by Dave's illness, of course. The two of them spend so much time around each other that they might as well be together. But as much as you'd like to give John a little push, you know that setting him up with a friend who might not be around forever is asking for trouble. 

Dave is doing all right for now, you suppose, but it's never a good sign when the first round of treatment doesn't work. You know from your own experiences with John's mother that the first few rounds usually show the best results, not the worst.

Sometimes, somewhere deep in your chest, it hurts to think about the very real possibility of Dave dying. Maybe it's that the younger Strider has become like a son to you--he's got a sharp tongue, and he has trouble trusting other people, but he has a heart of gold, and John would be devastated. 

Outside, Dave's got his head in his hands, and John's holding him.

...

Dishes. You're standing here to do dishes. You scrub each one far more thoroughly than you need to, and you don't even notice the hot water scalding your hands. 

==> John: Stick to your routine.

It's a typical Wednesday afternoon: you're valiantly attempting to do your math homework on a shitty plastic stool at the children's hospital. You tell yourself you're here to keep Dave company during chemo again, which sounds good in theory, except for the fact that he's started napping straight through more and more of his treatments. You can't decide if that means they're getting easier or harder.

You study him as he dozes, allowing yourself to stare for once. He's got that heinous lavender #1 GRANDMA beanie tugged over his bald head, picked out by yours truly the morning after you shaved his head. His shades have slipped far enough down his nose that you can tell his eyebrows are officially gone too, leaving a couple straggling eyelashes clinging for dear life. He's informed you his legs are smoother than shota balls. You believe him.

They're dripping some angry-looking red stuff into his port, and you've learned that this is the medicine that keeps him up puking until his eyes have gone watery and bloodshot. 

"Hey." He lazily opens an eye and stretches.

"How was baby's nap?" you ask. The baby jokes have started piling up, what with the bald head and the constant sleeping. Dave doesn't seem to mind.

"Chemo-licious." He leans forward a little and flinches when his IV line catches. "Can you check how much time's left on the pump?" It takes you a second to figure out that he's referring to the screen on the complicated IV stand next to his recliner. 

"Three minutes," you chirp, and a look of pure relief flashes across his face. He sighs and leans back. You've been here almost five hours. "Want me to call your bro back in?" 

"Nah, he deserves a break. He finally gets a few minutes to piss and feed himself now that you've started stalking me all the way to the infusion clinic every single time."

"Wow. That is totally what I'm doing. It's because of my giant homo crush on you, remember, Dave-chan," you say, snorting. You estimate you are 94% joking, but that's another story! There's no time for your dumb feelings when Dave's getting his medicine!

"Called it, dude. What better place to get our yaoi on than the fucking cancer center?" A nurse shoots him a dirty look. "They even provide the stripper poles," he whispers, wiggling his non-eyebrows and draping a bony arm around the IV stand.

Bro wanders back in just as Dave's machine starts beeping, and a nurse unhooks him from the IV. He carefully sits down on the arm of the recliner.

"How'd it go?" he asks.

"Fine."

"Do you feel okay?" 

Dave shrugs. "Chemo is chemo," he says flatly.

"I restocked your nausea meds at the pharmacy. You should probably take some right when we get home." Dave looks a little embarrassed; he always does when anyone mentions him needing something. You think having to rely on other people so much must have taken a toll on his pride. "That sound okay?"

"Yeah, I guess," he mumbles.

"Good. Let's head back to the car, then." Bro passes Dave the bluish mask he's supposed to wear when he's in public places, and he reluctantly slips it over his nose and mouth. You then hand him the crutches he's started needing to use, and yep, his ears are definitely burning now. Honestly, you think he's being kind of silly about the whole thing, given that he has a freaking tumor growing in his leg. 

After checking out at the clinic front desk, the three of you slowly make your way down through the hospital to the parking structure. You hate when people stare at Dave, although a tiny part of you is starting to wonder if he really is getting slower and wobblier on his feet. You can't help but notice Bro's hand hovering just behind his back, ready to catch him if he falls. You help him into the passenger seat and set his crutches across your lap in the back. 

The car ride home is virtually silent except for the muffled bass of "Call Me Maybe."


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jade and Rose witness 200% of their respective RDAs of Strider feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's not dead, i promise! sorry for being so sporadic with updates :')

==> Jade: Hang out.

Getting alone time with Dave is pretty tough given how often he's at the hospital, especially with Bro and John constantly hovering around, but you've finally managed to get a couple hours just the two of you to chill out and catch up. You've known Dave almost your whole life, so why are you always so nervous about ringing the buzzer to his apartment now that he's sick? 

He answers the door looking like he just got up. You decide not to remind him it's almost three in the afternoon. 

"Hey. I just hit Twilight Town," he tells you after a yawn, tilting his head toward the Paper Mario file he's got booted up on the TV. "Wanna take over and do Creepy Steeple?" 

"I'll let you do it! Everyone knows that's the best part," you say through a grin. 

"Debatable, but Vivian is definitely the coolest partner, so I'll take you up on that." He leads you into the living room, offering you what John always steals and deems the Ultimate Comfy Supreme Couch Spot, No Girls Allowed. Classic Dave--hobbling around on crutches and still offering up the best spot. You take the armchair instead, and he shrugs, flopping back down into his blanket nest.

"Want something to eat?"

"What do you have?"

"Uh...leftover meatloaf, sandwich stuff, and like four bottles of Zofran, if that's what you're into," he lists, and you giggle.

"Just what I'd expect from the neighborhood dealer!"

"Hey, if faking cancer isn't the most ingenious plot for getting my hands on a shitload of controlled substances, I don't know what is," he jokes. "Seriously though, if you want something, just grab it." 

"Will do!"

He tosses you a blanket from the pile next to him on the sofa and starts playing. You try your best not to give him too many hints, but you pride yourself on having played your way through the Paper Mario franchise more times than you can count. 

Bro eventually pads into the living room in boxers and a tank top two sizes too big for him. Is it just you, or has he gotten skinnier, too?

"How's the bleeding?" What's he talking about?

"Brooo," Dave whines distractedly, mashing the A button. "Fuck, I hate these fucking bats--"

"Oh, was I not supposed to mention it in front of the girlfriend?" 

"Hey!" You toss a pillow at him.

"And right when I was finally about to touch my first real live boob, too," Dave laments, finishing off a trio of enemies. "It's like you don't even love me."

"Sorry. Meant to break the news sooner or later. No, but for real," Bro pushes. 

"I dunno. It still oozes if I eat or brush my teeth or whatever," Dave says. You guess you must have looked confused, because he gingerly opens his mouth and points inside. Big sections are all raw and bloody, like someone's gone at it with a vegetable peeler, and you can't help but wince. "Mouth sores," he clarifies. "Fun new development."

"Oh," you say. "Are they getting better?"

He shrugs and walks into another battle. That's Davespeak for a resounding 'no', topped off with a nice dollop of 'I'm done talking about this'. Bro disappears into the kitchen for a second, and you're left just the two of you. 

"John told me your treatment isn't working," you blurt, and you immediately regret it. He messes up an action command and swears under his breath.

"Uh...yeah. Not yet, at least. The cancer's still growing."

"So what does that mean? Will you be okay?" He messes up another, and then one more after that.

"I hope so," he murmurs after a second, and you can't help but launch yourself at him in a giant, sloppy hug. He fumbles and drops the controller in surprise, but instead of reaching to pick it up, he just wraps his arms around you. You feel him exhale against you.

You sit like that for a minute or two, treasuring this rare snippet of closeness. Dave's not usually very tolerant of extended physical contact, but he's gotten better about it since he got sick. You guess he probably needs a lot of extra TLC.

"I miss you," you say into his shoulder. 

"Jade, I'm right here."

"Yeah, for now." You mentally cringe at how you phrased that. "I just mean I had to schedule today like a week in advance, that's all. I feel like I never see you." He pulls away and looks at you.

"Tell me about it. It's not like I'm a huge fan of spending all my time at the hospital either, but there's really not a whole lot I can do about it."

"That's not..." you start. "Even when you're free, you're always with John, so I feel like I'm intruding. Rose agrees." He furrows his non-eyebrows, and you can't tell if he's angry.

"Nothing's going to happen."

"What do you mean?"

"Between me and John. Seriously." 

"Why? You're practically dating already, so you might as well make it official."

"No, we aren't. It wouldn't be fair to him. I'd just be leaning on him all the time to deal with my sorry ass," he says, voice rising. "And the worst part is that he'd go along with it, because that's just what you do when your friend's the sick kid."

"It's okay to need people, Dave." 

He freezes.

"Something really horrible happened to you, and we all want to be there to help you through it, so you shouldn't feel like you're doing something wrong by relying on us."

"You sound like my shrink," he mutters with this tiny, wry smile. You didn't know he was seeing a psychologist--it makes sense, you guess, but it also makes you kinda queasy in the pit of your stomach. 

"I'm serious."

"I know," he says. He clears his throat. "I mean, thanks. It's...it means a lot. You all know I'm shitty at this kind of thing."

"Yeah," you agree with a semi-laugh. "I guess we can find it in our hearts to love you anyway." He laughs a little too, and gives you a tight squeeze before pulling away. 

"Anyway," he says, picking up the controller again. You don't move from your spot, legs half draped in his lap. "Ready to fight Doopliss?"

"We need to get the p first!" you cry. 

"She wants the p," he repeats with a smirk, and you (lightly) punch his arm.

You don't see Bro wipe his eyes on the double-bleached dishtowel in the kitchen.

==> Rose: Hear something you weren't meant to hear.

You'd just finished painting your fingernails with a new chunky lime sequin atrocity--the previous week you'd heard your mother mention in passing that she couldn't stand glitter polish--when you noticed it.

Mother was crying.

She always gets weepy around drink number five or six, but this was different. You couldn't hear much through the double barrier of both your bedroom doors, but she was definitely sniffling between sips of her vodka spritzer (heavy on the vodka, of course), and whoever was on the other line was barely letting her get a word in edgewise. 

Slipping on a pair of socks, careful not to smudge your nails, and avoiding the squeaky spots on the floorboards, you approached your mother's locked bedroom. 

Still too muffled to hear much, especially with all the blubbering.

You were ten seconds from giving up when she made the mistake of putting her phone on speaker, and you were ten seconds from throwing up when you heard Bro's voice on the other line, equally slurred and hysterical.

"A-And who'm I kidding, Rox, he's dyin', I hear the way the nurses talk--"

"You can't--"

"Fifty bucks says he doesn't even make it to John's birthday." (Hiccup.) "Like I'll even have fifty fuckin' dollars left after the bills keep comin' in..." (Sip. Swallow.) "God, I just wanna kill myself--havin' to watch him--"

You should've stayed and listened--he's so secretive about his feelings, and maybe you could've used some of this as material in your quest to unravel the Strider psyche--but hearing him come undone like this was almost sickening, so you hurried back to your bedroom and foolishly hoped you wouldn't remember it in the morning.

Unfortunately, your mother seems to be the forgetful one.

"You...really don't remember making or receiving any phone calls last night?" you prod at the breakfast table. Mother daintily sips her coffee (or is it Kahlua?). 

"I'm not sure what you're talking about. I had a few drinks, switched on Gilmore Girls, and I don't remember much after that. I must've fallen asleep."

She's not wearing her normal telltale 'I'm lying' smirk, so you're pretty sure she's being truthful...meaning she really did black out during their chat. Jesus, how much did they drink?

You'll learn later, when you bring it up long after Dave's fallen asleep at one of the Striders' feeble attempts at cheery hospital movie nights, that he apparently doesn't remember any of it either. 

(Or so he says.)

You don't catch any more of Bro's outbursts, meaning he's either gotten better at hiding them, or he's stopped talking to other people in the first place. You pick the option that makes you feel better and try not to read into it.


	15. Chapter 15

==> Dave: Have John over, just like always.

This sounds like something you would do, since you've been trying to find a way to simultaneously (1) have cancer and (2) act exactly like you did when you didn't have cancer. This is proving somewhat tricky, considering you've lost almost 30 pounds plus every last hair on your body, not to mention your dignity. 

When they diagnosed you, it sucked, yeah, but it was easy to convince yourself you'd end up breezing right through the whole cancer thing before you knew it. How hard could it be to sit in a chair for a couple hours every few weeks while they give you medicine to save your life? 

But it turns out the side effects of your new regimen are really starting to hit you hard, even harder than the other kids--more like steamrolling you, crumpling you up, and tossing you into a wood-chipper, to be completely honest. The chemo wipes you out, makes you more exhausted than you've ever been in your life, and you're dizzy and borderline nauseous for a good chunk of the time between treatments. 

You haven't told anyone, not even Bro, but you've stopped putting foods that require cooking, stovetop or microwave, on the grocery list. Some days you can't even bring yourself to stand up long enough to do anything more labor intensive than opening the fridge.

Another one of the things foiling your cancer-what-cancer plan is the pair of crutches upon which you are now totally dependent, which makes the cool guy act a little harder to pull off. Usually your strict schedule of prescription painkillers keeps things in check, but every once in a while it gets really bad, and you think you're gonna pass out or something until they give you one of these drug lollipops that works better than any of your pills. They told you it's the same medicine used to tranquilize large animals, and you aren't sure if this makes you feel better or worse.

Since your pelvis is getting weaker, the doctors have started gently suggesting that you consider using a wheelchair, but fuck that. You don't want them to take away your last shred of autonomy, especially not with Bro and your friends watching. 

You wish you could just skip being the sick kid and get on with your damn life.

Tonight, you're sitting on a stool in the kitchen watching Bro and John make dinner. There's this new unspoken pact that you don't have to do anything around the house, which makes you feel kind of stupid, but for which you're secretly grateful. You think you'd probably drop the dirty dishes or fall into the washing machine or something.

Bro and John are making burritos for themselves, but you know your dinner's coming from a bottle. You resist the urge to make a baby joke. 

You're still losing weight like crazy, partly because of the cancer and partly because of the nausea, so they have you drinking these weird nutrient formulas meant for old people and starving kids in Africa or whatever. They're okay, you guess, and they taste better than most stuff now that your taste buds have been thoroughly battered and chemo-fried. But you do feel kind of stupid being stuck with nutrition drinks and applesauce, and you know they're talking about putting a feeding tube down your nose like the ones you've seen on the eating disorder kids. 

You try to take your meds discreetly, but John glances back at you when the biggest pills rattle around inside the bottle, and you know he's trying not to stare. You don't blame him. You'd stare at you, too. 

Toward the end of the meal, Bro tells you to go check your clinic schedule for tomorrow, which is your code phrase for resting for a few minutes in your room. John doesn't seem to notice, and you hate to admit it, but you want nothing more than to just fall asleep right now all the way through tomorrow. You say nothing and hobble to your bedroom, quietly closing the door behind you.

==> John: Watch Dave be sick.

You had originally made plans to sleep over at Dave's apartment tonight, although part of you hopes he's forgotten. 

Having been tuckered out but otherwise okay during your post-chemo Mario Kart session, he started looking a little woozy over dinner, which for him consisted of a bottle of Ensure, a cup of applesauce, and a tiny mountain of pills. You recognized his usual cocktail of anti-nausea meds and a painkiller whose name you've only seen on cop shows, neither of which ever really seems to do all that much anyway. 

It's now almost midnight, and Bro's fallen asleep halfway through that stupid Simpsons movie. You're sitting on the ground surrounded by the pile of DVDs you brought, and Dave's watching from his blanket bundle on the couch.

"I still think we should make room for The Land Before Time if we're gonna be watching shitty animated movies anyway, dude," you suggest helpfully. He doesn't respond, and you turn around to defend your pick.

Dave is practically green, and from the looks of it he's not even watching the movie anymore. You've slept over once before after chemo, and you can tell he's doing that thing where he clenches his jaw and stares at the ceiling to try not to vomit. 

"You okay...?" you offer.

He swallows and nods, appearing to settle down for a split second before you hear the first retching noise. 

Helping Dave sit up a little, you frantically reach for the plastic bowl you know to keep on hand at all times. He heaves into it, and before you know it Bro is up too, rubbing his back and handing him a cool glass of water from the side table. His skin is sallow and sticky, and he keeps puking for another minute or two until he's just coughing and dry heaving. Bro leaves to empty the bowl and get it ready for another round.

"Sorry," he croaks, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

"Hey, no, none of that. It's not your fault, dude." You help him lean back into the pillows. "Do you need anything?"

He shakes his head. 

"You don't have to stay," he says quietly, taking a tiny sip from the glass. Apparently he remembers.

"What're you talking about?" You pat his shoulder a couple times. "I gotta stick around and make sure my best bro's doing okay."

He doesn't say anything to this, instead letting his head fall back into the pillows and closing his eyes.

It's moments like this where it's especially hard to forget he's sick. His face thins out more and more every time you see him, and while he's not a complainer, he's usually too tired out to do much more than movies or video games.

"Can you help me back to my room?"

The fact that he's asking for help kind of worries you. You've seen him sick like this before, and you know he takes a lot of pain medication, but he's never straight up admitted defeat in front of you.

"Yeah, of course. Should I just...?" You help him up and put an arm around him. He mumbles something and grabs his crutches, trying to steady himself a little. He's swaying on his feet--foot?--and you're just doing your best to get him the ten or fifteen steps from couch to door without incident. 

He finally flops down on the bed, still in the clothes he wore to the hospital. 

"Shouldn't we get you changed..." 

He responds with a 'mrrgh' after a long, deliberate pause and slowly sits back up again, hunching forward and closing his eyes. You guess he's asking you to get him clothes or something. You consider asking Bro to make sure everything's okay, but you can hear that he's already talking to an advice nurse over the phone, so you figure he's got enough on his plate as it is.

Grabbing a long-sleeved shirt and sweats, you help Dave maneuver his clothes off until he's just in his boxers. He's gotten scrawny enough that you wonder if it would've been faster to just carry him back to his bedroom. Something in your chest starts to ache when you notice that he's shivering as he pulls the sweats over his legs. You proceed to tuck him in and he manages a tired smirk.

"Thanks, mom." He paps your hand.

"Anything for my baby Dave," you coo jokingly, and is it just you or does this feel a little tender? You mentally scold yourself for getting all gooey when Dave's sick like this.

The moment lasts a second or two longer than it should before he turns over and scoots toward the wall.

"Come sleep whenever you want. I won't wake up," he says, voice muffled by the blankets. You leave a clean bowl on the bedside table and head out to brush your teeth.

==> John: Reflect.

It's 10:32 a.m., and you're sitting through US History thinking about anything but the reading quiz. Dave's seat is conspicuously empty, as usual. For the first couple weeks after he was diagnosed, they encouraged him to try to keep going to school with you once or twice a week, even if he didn't really do the schoolwork. You guess it was an effort to try to keep things feeling as normal as possible for him.

At that point, the treatment hadn't taken his hair yet, and the skinniness had happened gradually enough that you don't think anyone suspected anything. No one else noticed how sick he looked, which stunned you, because the details stuck out like a sore thumb to you--the weakness in his arms, the fact that even the walk down the hall from English to math tired him out, those times near the end of lunch when he always used to get up to leave because the sight of food grossed him out.

You keep thinking about the weeks or months he was in school earlier this year, just going about his business with a tumor silently growing inside his body. 

Before he got sick, popular opinion held that Dave was an aloof douche to the guys and some weird mysterious sex object to the girls, too unattainable to merit actually talking to. It pisses you off that people have suddenly started giving a shit about him now that they can pat themselves on the back for it. The school's student council is trying to organize a bake sale for breast cancer--apparently they didn't even bother to research what he's sick with, other than the fact that they can pin a colored ribbon on it--and the art club keeps designing these cruddy, mildly insensitive cards for you to bring back to him, all signed by people he barely spoke to. 

You're sure he doesn't mind you tossing them all in your neighbor's recycling on the walk home. You tear down three bake sale flyers and don't feel bad about it.


End file.
